Lightning bolt strikes beach

The sky grew dark, the wind picked up, the lightning struck and the rain came down. And it all happened in a matter of minutes.

As beachgoers gathered near Magnolia Boulevard early in the evening of July 14 to watch the final heat of Long Beach’s open surfing contest — part of NYSEA’s annual Surf Week — storm clouds began to crash the party, and the aura quickly changed.

“We just thought [the competitors] were going to surf in the rain,” said Jason Belsky, who was recording the event with his drone. “All of a sudden, it got weird out. It got really still and dark and then it got a little windy, and all the birds just started flying around like in the movies.”

Then, at about 5 p.m., a lightning bolt struck the beach near a lifeguard stand between Magnolia and National boulevards. Three lifeguards and two beachgoers were evaluated for injuries, Long Beach Fire Chief RJ Tuccillo said.

No one was hit directly by the bolt, but five people in the vicinity reported that they had been jolted, and some felt tingling in their arms and legs, Tuccillo said. He added that two people later went to the hospital on their own and were released that night. According to Oceanside resident Courtney Koehle, 27, she and at least three other people who felt the shock went to the hospital — her husband, Chris, and two lifeguards.

“My husband and I both felt like a giant baseball bat or hammer slammed into our heads, and then we blacked out unconscious probably for about a second or two,” Koehle said. “When we woke up, we were both on the sand.”

There was panic on the beach, she said, and “mass chaos” near the ambulances that arrived on the scene. “After, we were just really scared, because we didn’t really know what happened,” Koehle recounted. “It felt really crazy, like a bomb went off or something, so we didn’t realize [it was lightning] at first.”

Koehle said that she and her husband, 27, a Nassau County police officer and former Long Beach lifeguard and firefighter, drove to the hospital on their own, and were released at about 1 a.m. on Friday, after waiting for her elevated heart rate to return to normal. Chris felt pain in his neck and shoulders following the strike, she added.

The bolt hit the sand as the surfing contest’s crowd was being cleared off the beach, said Paul Gillespie, the city’s chief lifeguard. The finals of the contest were postponed, and completed early the next morning.

“The [storm] came in so fast, and before it even started approaching we were getting people off the beach,” Gillespie said. “People don’t move as fast as you’d like them to move, and they don’t believe it could actually happen. You can’t mess around with lightning.”

Gillespie explained that beach officials use an online application called Spark to monitor incoming storms. Though he has seen many lightning bolts hit the beach, he said, he had never seen a storm roll in so quickly. “It was here and gone,” he said. “As soon as that bolt hit, just about, the sun came out and it was beautiful.”

Pro surfers Leif Engstrom and Jeff Anthony — who were competing in the final heat — quickly paddled into shore after the lightning struck. A short downpour followed as the remaining people on the beach scrambled for shelter.

“All of a sudden when the rain came down, it was like staring through a car wash,” Belsky said. “The water was like the Amazon jungle for a couple minutes. We had all the equipment to wrap up, and we had to make sure everyone at the surf contest got off the beach safely.”

Cliff Skudin, co-owner of Skudin Surf, was on the adjacent beach. “It turned black and as we were clearing the water, the lightning struck the beach,” Skudin said. “It felt like the ground shook.”

Belsky, a local photographer, is known for his aerial drone shots of Long Beach’s shore. In April he filmed a whale feeding near Long Island, and last month he captured a pod of dolphins swimming past professional big-wave surfer Will Skudin — Cliff’s brother — who was riding near them on a personal watercraft. The lightning video, though, may take the cake.

“It was great that I had the camera rolling,” Belsky said. “I was facing the right direction, I was where I should have been and God or whatever just put that right there for me.”

Koehle said the footage is evidence of just how close the bolt came to them. “At first, we weren’t aware of how big of a deal it was, but when we got to the hospital, they said if it was any closer to us, we would definitely not have survived,” she said. “It’s cool for us to have the picture, because it really shows how lucky we were.”