LEESBURG — The sound of chain saws and hammers pierced the air Sunday as residents along the eastern edge of the city cleared debris and patched up what was left of their tornado-ravaged neighborhoods.
Few lost as much as Gordon Pemble on Saturday. He said Sunday he was glad his home was not affected. His business, Evergreen Ferneries on Fern Drive, was not as lucky. It was flattened.
Pemble said he lost about 20 greenhouses and sheds, and his office, cooler and packinghouse. The damage will total nearly $100,000, he said, not counting the loss of thousands of fern leaves he planned to sell as greenery to florists.
''It was leveled in '60 and '64 by hurricanes,'' said Pemble, 30, whose grandfather started the fernery in the 1930s. ''We came back then and we'll come back now. We were able to enjoy 21 years of prosperity, so we can't complain too loud now.''
Pemble said he will be able to save most of his crop if he can get it covered before heavy cloud cover moves out and the sun reappears.
City utility workers, clad in hard hats and yellow slickers, battled showers and gusty winds all day Sunday as they worked to repair mangled power lines and replace snapped utility poles.
Other workers swept streets clean of shattered glass, fallen trees and jagged pieces of tin roofing.
''We've had crews going non-stop,'' said Charlie Lennon, a heavy-equipment operator for the Leesburg electric department. ''In general, everything's been a hell of a mess.''
The tangled and splintered mess left behind by a twister that passed through the Sunnyside community of single-family houses and the Brittany Estates mobile home park Saturday morning was a big attraction for sightseers. Hundreds of people passed by in their cars to get a glimpse of the destruction, but deputy sheriffs allowed only residents, insurance representatives and cleanup crews to travel into the areas.
The Lake County Sheriff's Department said Sunday that 64 conventional and mobile homes were destroyed, with 52 others severely damaged and 66 sustaining light damage.
Seven tornado-related injuries were reported Saturday in Lake County, none life-threatening. The tornado was a spinoff from Hurricane Elena, which was threatening Florida's west coast.
Although the two neighborhoods east of Leesburg were hardest hit, damage from the tornado stretched along a 5-mile path from Lake Harris north to above Treasure Island on Lake Griffin.
Don Coons, who lives next to Pemble's fernery, lamented Sunday the loss of more than $20,000 in cars, two of which were classic Ford Thunderbirds he was hoping to restore.
Coons said that when he heard the tornado begin to tear off the roof of his house, he gathered his family and ran toward a garage where the cars were housed.
''It wasn't there,'' he said. The tornado had passed by quickly but not before reducing the building to a pile of rubble despite its concrete and steel construction.
Gail Burry, who lives on Sunnyside Drive, said her son, Jimmy, 25, and his girlfriend, Connie Barcus, 20, arrived for the weekend after they were forced to leave Homosassa on the west coast early Saturday ''because it was too dangerous.''
''They left and came home to this,'' said Burry, whose house had one end ripped open by the storm.
