Tallahassee's Railroad Square hit hard by possible tornado. See the damage from above

Rocky Pogge lived in Miami during Hurricane Andrew.

"This is what it looked like," Pogge told the Tallahassee Democrat on Friday afternoon, after tornadoes and storms shred through Tallahassee in the morning.

Pogge, who owns NorthFlora Collective, a plant shop in Railroad Square, said the storm devastated the arts district.

Some buildings no longer have roofs.

"It's terrible," she said. "One of the galleries is completely gone, smashed down to the ground. Inside the shop, there's water and glass everywhere, the roof is just peeled back.”

Railroad Square was one of the hardest hit areas of Tallahassee, along with Indianhead Acres, Myers Park and College Town.

The Tallahassee railway station, which was just renovated, was not spared by the tornado's winds, as it sits behind Railroad Square. The station was opened last fall and is became the welcome and visitor information center of VisitTallahassee.

But Friday morning, pink insulation littered the ground outside of the building and on the inside. Water dripped onto the seats of All Saints Cinema, and pieces of wood with embedded nails were scattered in the parking lot.

Twisted sheet metal from the roofs of Railroad Square’s buildings had blown over to College Town and littered the student housing complexes, damaging cars in the process.

A video from above shows the holes the sheet metal left behind, when the wind pulled it from the roofs of decades-old warehouses.

Friday evening, 79,000 City of Tallahassee utility customers were without power, and cars lined up and stalled traffic at the few as stations that were open.

Ana Go?i-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at [email protected]. 

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Railroad Square in Tallahassee hit hard by morning storms, tornado