"Rains hit hardest in Long Beach, Seal Beach, San Pedro and Huntington tornado"
Long Beach, Seal Beach, San Pedro and Huntington Beach along the coast were hit hardest by the fast-moving storm, which flooded streets, damaged homes, produced hail and ice and stranded cars on Interstate 710.
Witnesses reported seeing a tornado touch down in Sunset Beach and lift boats out of the water as it came onshore, sheriff's officials said.
Sheriff's deputies were responding to reports that a tornado or waterspout had touched down near the Pacific Coast Highway, lifting several catamarans 30 to 50 feet in the air, according to Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino.
Scott Seaton, 60, is the manager of the Peter's Landing Marina in Huntington Harbour. He said he was in the office with his wife when they got a computer warning that a tornado warning had been issued.
He said they watched out the window as the "cyclone," as Seaton described it, passed over their building and touched down in the marina. It stayed there for a while before moving down the marina, getting stronger.
At one point, Seaton said, it picked up a 40-foot catamaran and twirled it several feet in the air. The catamaran dropped back into the water on top of another boat.
There was damage to that catamaran as well as a small whaler.
"It was just amazing watching that thing dance up in the air," he said of the catamaran. "As quick as it came it was gone. I can't even imagine seeing a monster one because this thing seemed so powerful," Seaton said of the funnel cloud. "When it came, it was just 'boom.' It was just unbelievable."