We're getting a look at surveillance video of Friday's storm. Video that shows just how powerful it was as it hit Winchester.
It was an 18th birthday party at the Aloft Hotel on Millwood Pike in Winchester. The party started at 8 p.m. Friday. An hour later, just as everyone was singing happy birthday, the wind blew the candles out.
Surveillance cameras were rolling outside of the hotel. It's 9:38 Friday night. In the video, you can see, the wind starts to pick up, but no one has any idea what is about to happen. The tent is tied down with more than 1800 pounds of weight with these barrels. But those barrels were no match for the tropical storm force winds that tore through here. The birthday girl's father grabs on to the tent. In the video, you can see, the force is so strong, it picks him right up off the ground.
"All the people just ran. That's me I'm trying to get every body down in the basement," said Aloft General Manager Josh Reichert.
Inside, there's just as much chaos. Within seconds, the wind gusts through the lobby of the hotel and blow luggage off a cart and people come running into the hotel looking to get to a safe spot.
"You can see our light fixture there moving. Our light fixture over here moving," said Reichert.
Reichert rushed everybody out of here and into the basement and stairwells, not knowing whether this was a tornado or not, but doing what they would if a tornado was coming. He had more than a 150 people huddled in the basement of the hotel.
Outside, the winds tore at the tent, but one thing remained untouched. The birthday cake for an 18-year-old's birthday. A birthday she'll never forget
And if you're wondering who this family is they live right here in Winchester. Latavia Taylor is turning 18 on Wednesday July 4th. She says at the party, there were about ten people stuck under the tent and locked outside one of them was her cousin. Taylor says she will never forget her 18th birthday and neither will anyone else that was there.
"I was in the process of listening them sing Happy Birthday and the next thing you feel is whoof and I'm like oh my god I gotta go," said Taylor.
"All I seen was her food from the table flying this way towards everybody. I'm like it's crazy. I've never seen anything like it was like the Wizard of Oz," said Latavia's Cousin Kisha Washington.
"I didn't know what was going on I was scared I wanted to cry so bad but I was like my friends are here I can't do it I can't do it. And then I was like my money wait I just lost all of it," said Taylor.
There were only two injuries One person at the party got hit in the mouth and chipped a tooth. Another person was hit by one of the automatic doors that was blown off it's track.
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