Video shows moment teacher was sucked out of classroom during rare California tornado

A teacher was blown out of her classroom by the powerful winds of a tornado near downtown Los Angeles on March 22.

The chilling moment was captured in cellphone video and involved a teacher at Vail High School in Montebello, Calif., according to NBC4 Los Angeles.

The teacher allegedly opened the door after her students told her someone ran outside, at which point the wind ripped open the door and yanked her off her feet, sucking her out, according to NBC4.

“All of a sudden we opened the door a bit and then we saw a gust of wind start to build up and then it got faster and faster,” said a high school student who reportedly came to the rescue. of the teacher.

The teacher was slightly injured in the incident, according to NBC4.

It was the strongest tornado to hit the Los Angeles metropolitan area since 1983, according to the National Weather Service.

With peak winds of 110 miles per hour, the tornado wreaked havoc, damaging 17 buildings in an industrial warehouse and commercial business district, according to NWS.

A building suffered a near total roof collapse and an HVAC unit was ejected from the top of the structure, the NWS said.

The tornado, which touched down for about two or three minutes, according to the NWS, also damaged several cars and uprooted a large pine tree.

Tornadoes are rare in California, but this was the second tornado to hit the Golden State in 24 hours.

The NWS confirmed that a “weak and narrow” tornado touched down in a mobile home park about 100 miles away near Santa Barbara on March 21, damaging about 25 mobile homes.

These tornadoes are the latest in a series of severe weather events to hit California in recent weeks, including catastrophic flooding and rare blizzards.

This article originally appeared on TODAY.com