Florida tornadoes claim 38

Hundreds were rendered homeless by storms said to be worst since the weather service started keeping records about 50 years ago. Florida is called sunshine state8217; and is home to a large number of retirement communities, quite of few of which were hit.

The largest number of deaths, seventeen were reported from the Ponderosa park tourist camp ground which was packedbecause of an annual festival.Emergency workers earlier had reported 39 deaths but later corrected the figure.

Though tornado warning had been issued, most people were sleeping when they hit around midnight. Everything was over within a short time.

On West Coast, California, which has been having inclement weather for several weeks, experienced storms which dumped two and half centimetres of rain per hour, flooding large areas and triggering mudslides.