What started out as a day of fun quickly turned into a nightmare for some on Hawaii Island.
A viewer sent in video of a swirling gust of wind that sent umbrellas flying and beachgoers scrambling at Mauna Kea Beach Monday afternoon.
“(The umbrellas) were spinning even further off the beach and out into the water and up about 30 feet or 40 (feet), and then at one point there were about six of them going,” said Laurel Prior, who was visiting from Sacramento and happened to be strolling along the beach.
“People were just kind of sitting there, not doing much at the moment thinking it was just a dust storm, and then they started getting up and getting concerned when the umbrellas started coming back, because then they were on the beach bouncing up back towards the hotel.”
The video shows beachgoers taking cover as the umbrellas continue to circle over head, some of them slamming into the ground close by.
Despite the chaos, Prior said no one seemed to be hurt.
“It actually tosses a lounge chair into the water and some people just started running at that point, but it was coming down the beach towards us and I didn’t stick around for anymore,” she added.
So what was it? A meteorologist says it was actually a sand devil, or a type of dust devil.
“These devils can occur at any time even on sunny days like today,” said Henry Lau with the National Weather Service.
Lau says it can happen near buildings, in open fields, on the beach, anywhere where it’s windy. He says the winds don’t have to be strong.
“This one occurred in an area with a bunch of umbrellas that were propped up and the winds picked them up and made it a very dangerous scene,” said Lau.
