A 21-year-old man was killed and 13 people
were injured after being struck by lightning on
Venice Beach in Los Angeles during a freak July thunderstorm on Sunday,
CBS Los Angeles reports. The storm formed so rapidly that experts said
Monday it was impossible for anyone to predict a lightning strike would
turn a day of carefree fun into one of terror.
Paramedics were
dispatched to Ocean Front Walk on Venice Beach around 2:15 p.m after
witnesses reported a tremendous crash of thunder that happened without
warning. The boom rattled buildings, showered a lifeguard headquarters
with sparks and caught swimmers and beach-goers on the boardwalk by
surprise.
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"All
of a sudden, there was a huge explosion and everyone dropped to the
ground. I thought, `Is there a bomb? Are there fireworks?' The sky got
black and then it started downpouring," said Sam Solomon, a 24-year-old
outdoor marketer from Los Angeles.
Along the beach, famous
internationally for its jugglers, skaters, medical marijuana dealers and
boardwalk preachers and hucksters, panic instantly set in. The
phenomenon is so rare that lifeguards lack an emergency warning system
for a lightning event.
Photos on social media revealed a chaotic
scene with numerous emergency vehicles and several patients being
treated on the beach by paramedics.
The 21-year-old was rushed unresponsive to a hospital after the
strike and later died. Coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter identified
him as Nick Fagnano of Los Angeles. Some witnesses said Fagnano had been
in the water when the lightning hit, but authorities couldn't confirm
that.
Twelve other people, including a 15-year-old boy, were
examined after they felt the effects of the lightning, ranging from
anxiety to a man who needed CPR. However, not all were necessarily
actually struck by lightning, said Katherine Main, a city fire
spokeswoman. Nine were taken to hospitals, where one was listed in
critical condition. Most of the others were mainly shaken up and
expected to recover, fire officials said.
The
National Weather Service in Los Angeles tweeted
at around the time of the strike that "cloud to ground lightning" had
been reported in nearby Marina Del Rey and at the Los Angeles
International Airport. "Stay indoors if you hear thunder until it
passes," the Weather Service tweeted.
About hour earlier, a
57-year-old man was struck by lightning on a golf course on Catalina Island, according to CBS Los Angeles. The man was reported in stable condition.
In
Redondo Beach, lightning struck a home and caught a car on fire,
damaging several homes. Authorities say the thunderstorms also set at
least two small brush fires on Catalina that were quickly doused.
Storms
dumped 0.14" of rain in just one hour on Sunday, which alone makes this
the fourth-wettest July on record at Los Angeles International Airport,
and the the wettest July there since 1992. Records at the airport began
in 1944.
"Thunderstorms are uncommon at the beach in Los Angeles
any time of year, but particularly in July," said weather.com senior
digital meteorologist Nick Wiltgen. "Rain does not often reach the
California beaches in July, but in this case monsoon moisture from the
deserts drifted farther west than usual, allowing some showers and
thunderstorms to fire up."
Wiltgen said, "Los Angeles is known for
its microclimates, but at the LAX airport location specifically,
measurable rain has only fallen in 20 out of the past 71 Julys. Sunday's
storm dumped as much rain in one hour as had fallen in the previous 10
Julys -- 310 days' worth of rain -- combined."
According to
information compiled by NOAA, there had been 15 lightning deaths in the
U.S. prior to Sunday's incident. None had been in California.
California's
last lightning fatality was over a year ago, when 66-year-old Christine
Ann Adrian was killed at a campground in Dardanelle. The last lightning
death in Southern California was June 3, 2009, when 40-year-old Tina
Marie Bond was struck under a tree while walking to a bus in Fontana.
Downtown Los Angeles measured only a trace of rain Sunday, but that tied the record rainfall for July 27 at that location.
The unusual weather comes from monsoonal moisture that's brought a line of thunderstorms to the region.
"This
tragedy reminds us that we can take nothing for granted or
underestimate the power of nature," Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a
statement.
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