Atlantic Beach clubs, hit by EF1 tornado during potent storm, clean up devastating damage

An EF1 tornado touched down in Atlantic Beach during a powerful storm Thursday night that brought a deluge of rain across Long Island.

A waterspout — a churning column of water and air — formed off the coast near Sun & Surf Beach Club and became a tornado when it made landfall, said National Weather Service officials, who believed other waterspouts could have also formed during the storm.

Friday evening, the weather service announced the tornado was a EF1 classification, meaning it fell into the second of six levels on the Enhanced Fujita Scale that measures tornado intensity. During those chaotic three minutes, gusts blew through the area upward of 97 mph, according to the agency.

"Tornadoes are not something you can prepare for. Tornadoes start in an instant," Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said during a news conference Friday morning. "It started over the ocean and came over the beach club."

The scenes at the club were devastating. About 50 of the club's 360 cabanas were damaged. Workers could be seen throughout Friday hauling pieces of wood and siding onto the beach. The tornado hurled personal items like toys and beach chairs.

Chris Nappi, the club's food and beverage manager, said a family with six children was sheltering in a cabana during the storm. The roof of the structure started to lift off before the tempest subsided.

"It was definitely traumatic," Nappi said. "There was a lot of chaos, just not really knowing what was going on."

The Inwood Fire Department searched for people trapped in the wreckage. One worker at the beach club suffered minor injuries, officials said.

Bill Baumert, the beach club’s president, said it could have been worse.

"It's hard to believe when you look around this place and you see these huge pieces of ... structures laying across things and a lot of people were here ... and nobody got hurt," Baumert said. "It all happened so fast. It was here and gone in a minute."

The club is closed as cleanup and repairs continue, a note to members said. "However, we are very hopeful and working diligently toward reopening this season," it said, adding that its sister club, Silver Point Beach Club, which is less than a mile away, had very little storm damage and would reopen on Saturday.

The tornado's gusts between 65 and 97 mph "resulted in an approximately 0.36 miles long by 100 yard wide path of moderate to major damage," the weather service said.

The waterspout moved from the Rockaways east toward the entrance of the East Rockaway Inlet and the western shoreline of Atlantic Beach, according to the weather service. It made landfall as a tornado in the beach club parking lot about 6:47 p.m. Over the next three minutes, it wrecked cabanas, shattered windows of nearly 30 cars and "demolished" a 30-yard sand fence before heading back over the water and "dissipating," the agency said.

Nelson Vaz, warning coordination meteorologist for the weather service, said that although the EF1 storm was relatively weak, "even a weak tornado is serious."

"Anybody that's in the path, you're seeing violent winds that can be up to 100, 110 mph, and we know that can do quite a bit of damage," Vaz said. 

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre), a member of the beach club, was floored by the damage and said it serves as "a stark reminder" for the need to prepare for extreme weather.

"It's hard to believe that something like this could happen. You never hear of a tornado hitting Long Island, and then just to see this devastation," Gillen said.

The heavy storm system pushed through Long Island and doused parts of Nassau County with more than 3 inches of rain. Higher totals reaching around 5 inches of precipitation were recorded in Suffolk County, according to National Weather Service rainfall reports.

Rain began to hit parts of Nassau County around 5 p.m. Thursday before the storm unleashed significant downpours across the Island during the evening commute. Some roads flooded, and trees were downed in the wake of the system. Nassau County officials declared a state of emergency on Thursday. 

"People were telling me they were pumping water in their basement. I saw a lot of vehicles stranded," said NewsdayTV meteorologist Geoff Bansen. "Flooding was definitely a big deal because this heavy rain happened really over the course of two, three hours."

Despite the heavy rainfall, Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine said the county dodged the worst of the storm. 

"Two short years after the last August storm that left a path of destruction to homes and roadways, we are again reminded that these weather events are becoming more common," Romaine said in a statement. "This time, Suffolk County dodged the brunt of another violent summer storm. We continue to storm harden our infrastructure and always emphasize the importance of preparation for all residents."

In August 2024, a raging storm brought about 10 inches of rainfall in the matter of hours to Suffolk County's North Shore. The torrential downpours damaged infrastructure, flooded homes and triggered rescues throughout the region. 

Winds reached nearly 50 mph near John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens Thursday night, the weather service reported, and hundreds of homes were without power early Friday morning as PSEG Long Island worked to repair its system. The utility company said a few lingering outages Friday afternoon would be repaired by 8 p.m.