A rare waterspout-turned-tornado tore through a Long Island beach club Thursday evening, destroying dozens of cabanas and sending beachgoers scrambling for cover.
The twister touched down at the Sun and Surf Beach Club in Atlantic Beach, Nassau County, around 6:45 p.m. During a severe storm system that prompted county officials to declare a state of emergency. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, in a statement, confirmed the tornado struck the shorefront community and said emergency crews were mobilizing to assess the destruction.
“So far there are no reports of casualties or serious injuries,” Blakeman said in his statement. “There is property damage at Silver Point Beach Club and Sun and Surf that is being assessed right now, and a search team has been mobilized to make sure no one is trapped within the cabanas.”
The Inwood Fire Department reported that approximately 50 cabanas were damaged or destroyed at Sun and Surf, where about 100 workers and guests were present during what Inwood Fire Chief Josiyah Green described as “a pretty busy evening.” One club employee sustained a minor head injury but refused medical attention at the scene, according to fire officials.
Green attributed the lack of more serious injuries to sheer luck. “Best I can call it is luck,” he told reporters at the scene. “Just by the grace of luck that a lot of people weren’t hurt here because this beach club is a very popular place during the summer.” He confirmed no one was trapped inside any of the structures and no rescues were required.
Matthew Stark, 28, a Long Beach local and tugboat mate, was at Sun and Surf with nine family members when the storm struck. The lifelong club member said the group had huddled into their wooden cabana to escape torrential rain when the tornado ripped the roof clean off.
“As 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,” Stark told The Post.
“I’ve never felt or experienced anything like that, kind of surreal. One second, it’s like no big deal. The next second, everything was turned upside down, quite literally.”
Stark said the destruction resembled something out of tornado alley rather than a New York beach community. “I’ve never seen carnage like that. It looked like the videos you see in the Midwest of like a tornado ripping through a town,” he said. “It was crazy.”
Despite the chaos, Stark and his relatives escaped largely unharmed. “Someone was watching out for us for sure,” he said. “After all that, being able to walk away injury-free with nine people…I got a scratch on my finger, a little bump on my head, but yeah, that’s it.”
AccuWeather confirmed that footage captured in East Atlantic Beach was consistent with a waterspout, a tornado that forms over water. The National Weather Service indicated the waterspout “may have come on land,” which would make it a traditional tornado, though officials said a full damage assessment was needed before making an official determination. The NWS noted this would be the first tornado to hit Nassau County since 2021.
The weather service was also investigating another possible waterspout-turned-tornado that touched down in the Rockaways in Queens around the same time. A tornado warning had been issued for southwestern Nassau County and parts of Queens from roughly 6:50 to 7:05 p.m.
The storm system caused widespread disruption beyond the beach clubs. Heavy rainfall created significant travel issues across Long Island, with reports of a woman trapped in a flooded vehicle on Cherry Valley Avenue and the West Hempstead Turnpike. Two to three vehicles were stranded on North Central Avenue in Valley Stream beneath the Southern State Parkway, and motorists were reported trapped on the highway itself.
Blakeman said first responders were grappling with multiple reports of people trapped in vehicles due to flooding on the South Shore. The county executive noted he had spoken with Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine to coordinate any regional response needed elsewhere on Long Island.
In the viral moment, terrifying video from East Atlantic Beach showed the massive waterspout forming near the shoreline and gradually moving inland, tearing through boardwalk businesses before dissolving shortly after landfall. The footage captured the spout’s dark funnel churning over the water and then slamming into the beach club properties, sending debris flying across the sand. The twister lifted roofs from beachside cabanas and left wood and patio furniture strewn throughout the area, with damage also reported at nearby Silver Point Beach Club.
Both Sun and Surf and Silver Point Beach Club will be temporarily closed until further notice, club management announced. Blakeman and the Nassau County Police Department scheduled a news conference for 8 a.m. Friday in Atlantic Beach to provide an update on the storm damage.