PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Zach Means was staring out his front windshield Saturday afternoon as low-flying debris whizzed in front of his car. By his side was his loyal dog, Marlin.
"He knew,'" Means recalled.
Means, like so many others, had just received an alert on his phone about a tornado warning.
"At that point, I knew it was probably best for us to try to get off the road," he said. "So, we were headed back to the apartment and, unfortunately, we were headed into the path of the tornado."
He drives past PGA Boulevard and U.S. Highway 1 every day and was minutes from home when the winds from what turned out to be an EF2 tornado lifted his car and flipped him over.
"It was really (an) intense scene, but the actual car flipping, that was very unexpected," he said. "Like, I could see all the stuff flying around but the car wasn't shaking or moving a lot. It just went from, oh, I'm watching this in front of me to, like, it took us away, like instantly."
Another driver was in a car near Means, recording video of the flying debris on her phone, when Means' car spun and rolled over.
"When the car started to flip, like, I do remember kind of like a flash of seeing the airbag go off and the glass break, but then, you know, we were back upright, and I was just sitting there with my hands on the wheel, and it seemed to happen, basically, instantaneously," he recalled.
The car landed wheels down in the opposite direction.
Means and Marlin retraced those heart-stopping moments for WPTV on Monday. He doesn't recall how many times his car flipped.
"The only thing I know is what happened in the video," he said.
When the car came to a rest, Means said there was one thing on his mind.
"Honestly, it was the dog," he said. "Turned around, it was the first thing I did, and I said his name and his head pops up from the trunk."
Now he's back to walking with Marlin, sifting through the debris field from his car and the tornado's track.
"I'm lucky, my dog's lucky, everybody's lucky that, you know, everybody walked away unscathed," he said.
