In Florida’s deadliest-ever tornado outbreak on Feb. 23, 1998, a dozen of the victims died when tornadoes tore through Seminole County.

Patty Webb vividly remembers when the storm hit her home near the Sanford airport.

“I felt the floor lift up, and that was scary; so I asked God to save us,” Webb said.

A tornado with 250 mile-per-hour winds flipped her home upside down. After it hit, Webb ran to her mother’s house nearby -- leaving her husband behind.

“I knew from the time we woke up on top of that pile that he didn’t make it through the storm,” Webb said.

“You’re in shock of course, but you don’t have time to think, just react,” said Ollie Forbes, Webb’s mother.

“My first thought was to get clothes for them, get towels for them and get them dried off.”

Webb said she hardly recognized the area around her destroyed home.

“You’re very disoriented, because you know how this place is supposed to look, but it doesn’t look like that, so you’re not sure you are where you are,” said Webb.

Webb said the only thing standing on her property was a mangled tree with a limb extending upward.

“And my daughter said her dad left us a note so we’d know where he was, because it points right up to heaven,” Webb said.

Just days before the 20th anniversary of the deadly tornado outbreak, Webb visited a memorial in a park along Lake Jesup that lists her husband’s name and the names of 11 other victims. These are lives forever linked to hers through tragedy.

“Each one of these people has a story,” Webb said. "Life is like a book – it has a beginning, a middle and an end. And like a good book, we always hate to see it end. And everybody’s life is like that – some are shorter, some are longer.

"There are many more people who have survived and had a hard time surviving since then,” she added.