1 hour ago
3
Stunning drone footage shows the sheer destruction left behind by the rare tornado that blew through Long Island Thursday night — with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman saying it’s “a blessing” no one was killed.
Video taken by The Post Friday morning shows cabana tops completely blown off at the Sun and Surf Beach Club in Atlantic Beach — with debris strewn all over the beach.
Blakeman said the “narrow” tornado, which touched down around 7 p.m., wrecked an estimated 50 cabanas.
“There was one minor injury … they didn’t even go to a hospital. It was really a blessing that more people weren’t injured or killed,” the Republican gubernatorial hopeful said.
“It was a very powerful tornado. It destroyed cabanas. There were very large wooden beams that were knocked over,” added Blakeman, who declared a state of emergency Thursday night.
The sudden weather event – one that is highly unusual for the area – originated as a waterspout at sea and traveled from the Rockaways as it struck land at the beach club as a tornado, according to the National Weather Service.
“We’ve been going there my entire life, and even when [Superstorm] Sandy hit, I saw the pictures after there, and nothing looked like that today. I’ve never seen carnage like that,” club member Matthew Stark told The Post hours after the insanity.
“It looked like the videos you see in the Midwest of a tornado ripping through a town. It was crazy. We didn’t even realize it was a tornado at first either. We were like, ‘What the hell just happened?'”
Stark was with nearly 10 family members in their estimated 25-by-15-foot cabana sheltering from a torrential downpour of “sideways rain” just before the tornado reached the club at about 6:57 p.m.
“I was closing the door to the cabana, you heard and felt the whoosh of the gusts of wind, and it ripped the roof right off, blew all the debris, and stuff just started falling on us — the roof and the beams,” he said.
“Thank God we all decided we didn’t want to get wet.”
Stark and his family, like others at the club, walked to their cars safely afterward through the destruction.
He suffered only “a scratch on my finger, a little bump on my head.”
“Everybody else was completely fine besides dust and sand stuff that kept blowing into our faces.”
The intense rainstorm that preceded the tornado also minimized risk to life, as Stark said the beach was mainly desolate at the time — hours after a crowded special luncheon at the club.
“If it had been three or four hours earlier, there would have been a lot of serious injuries,” added Blakeman, who said that financial damage is still being assessed.
“Basically, the rest of the beach club was strewn with debris, but no structural damage.”
Other parts of mainland Nassau County and surrounding New York City also endured massive flooding around the same time.
One video posted to the popular Long Island Wiseguy Instagram showed a Levittown shopping center off Hempstead Turnpike overrun by floodwaters that trapped cars.
Blakeman also confirmed that “there were a couple of vehicles that went through water and they stalled, and they had to be helped out” on Southern State Parkway near Queens, and a Stewart Manor home lost its roof.
“I’ve never felt or experienced anything like that, kind of surreal. One second, it’s no big deal. The next second, everything was turned upside down, quite literally,” Stark said.
“Someone was watching out for us, though, for sure.”
English (US)