There's no place like home.

Or at least, that's what many say, especially of California, a state often praised for its mild climate.

The weather as of late, however, has been anything but mild. A storm brought flooding across the Bay Area this weekend, punctuated by a false alarm tornado warning for San Francisco residents in Saturday morning's early-morning hour.

For people living in the small Santa Cruz County town of Scotts Valley, though, the warning they received that day was far from a false alarm.

On Saturday afternoon at around 2:00 p.m., a surprise tornado touched down in the city's commercial district, boasting wind gusts with peak speeds of 90 miles per hour. Over the next five minutes, it knocked down power lines, overturned several vehicles, and uprooted trees before then fizzling out.

Five people were injured, including a Cal Fire battalion chief, after his work truck ended up being among the vehicles flipped by the twister. Multiple road closures and an overnight power outage followed, with most of the damage being dealt with by Sunday morning.

Scotts Valley police Capt. Scott Garner, in a press release, praised his department and other agencies who worked throughout the night to restore normalcy for residents.

"Thanks to these collective efforts, all roads and businesses in the  City of Scotts Valley that were scheduled to be open today are now fully operational with power," Garner said.

Tornadoes are a rarity in California, with most reputable sources stating that only eleven of them touch down in the state per year. Scotts Valley residents, understandably, expressed varying degrees of shock in their statements to the media when asked about their reaction to the event.

“I’ve never seen something like that in Santa Cruz,” one person told local outlet Lookout Santa Cruz. “And I’ve lived here my whole life.”

Photo by Greg Johnson on Unsplash