On Saturday morning, the wind was lighter after passing Tahoe in South Lake. The sky was clear. Temperatures began to rise in the late 50s.
The previous day, the National Weather Service had issued Wind Advisory, but on Saturday the weather finally seemed to settle. The forecast showed that there was even less chance of rain and thunderstorms, but that was not common for ordinary sailors on Lake High Sierra.
Hundreds of sailors and anglers went out.
And at first it looked like a good day on the water. Joby Cefalu said he and his group caught four fish almost immediately as they stopped along the eastern shore of the lake, where they recalled glassy water.
But something changed around 2pm.
Cefalu – a lifelong Tahoe sailor and co-owner of the Mile High Fishing Charter – has noticed several white caps being formed. Also, the wind was quickly picked up and exploded from the north, which was not typical.
“I told the customer, “Essentially, you’re probably looking at a 2-foot or 3-foot chop by the time you get to here 30 minutes, and from there it’s probably going to be a bit worse,” Sephal said as he headed for the boat he was piloting towards the marina. “I had 5-6 feet of chops within 15 minutes and 8-10 feet of chops within 30 minutes.”
The next two hours will see the lake’s condition deteriorate rapidly, and it will be a competition between time and mother nature, faster than many locals and the long-time Mariners have ever seen. Within minutes, several South Lake Tahoe boats capsized. In at least two cases, passengers plunged into cold, choppy water. Despite the rescue efforts, eight of the eight residents of one boat near DL Bliss State Park will die in dangerous situations.
Many struggled to resist the relentless wave. In some cases, onlookers helped desperate passengers become safe, but other unmanned ships sink or collide on mooring, nearby piers or other boats. Several buoys washed the tracks. Dozens of people were treated for hypothermia after the miserable boats overcome the dangerous conditions.
“This is the worst situation I’ve seen on the lake,” said Mayor Tamara Wallace, who has lived in the area for decades. She praised first responders, local boating community and bystanders as they stepped up during the crisis, noting that South Lake Tahoe police officers and firefighters were able to save the 10 people who were cupped near Tahoe Kies Pier.
“A lot of people were helping people,” she said.
A sudden storm on Lake Tahoe on Saturday left behind damage. The crew were dispatched to clean oil from the capsized boat.
(California’s Bureau of Spill Prevention and Response)
However, one group could not be completely saved as the boat capsized and eight people died. Wallace called it an “unspeakable tragedy.”
The Coast Guard and the El Dorado Sheriff’s Office responded to the coast of DL Bliss State Park in Lake Tahoe’s southwest lake around 3pm on Saturday. The area’s waves have been reported at about eight feet tall, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Initially, authorities were able to save the two people who were taken to a local hospital, but six others were found dead, officials said. On Sunday, rescuers recovered the seventh body, and on Monday afternoon it was also found dead, the last missing bowler, sheriff’s officials reported.
The Coast Guard said the group was on a 27-foot gold crish craft ship. Other details about the trip are not disclosed to the boat owner or the person on board.
The Sheriff’s Office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Times, but other officials said the crash was under investigation. None of the victims were identified.
Tahoe officials have always warned people to take precautions on water and monitor the weather, but officials and locals said they felt a quick switching of conditions was unprecedented.
According to the National Weather Service, between noon and 3pm, the winds in South Lake Tahoe went from 5 miles or 10 mph to 35-45 mph. Temperatures have dropped from mid-50s to late 30s. And there were reports of the waves appearing to increase a few feet, with swelling and chops hitting 7-10 feet. At one point in the storm, it even snowed.
“This particular storm appeared quite rapidly,” said Matthew Chiba, a meteorologist with the Reno-based Meteorological Bureau, which includes the Tahoe area. Chyba confirmed on Saturday that no recommendations had been issued to Tahoe, but was called a storm caught in a very bad thunderstorm.
“It was very localized,” Chiba said. “Unfortunately, it was in a place where people were recreating it.”
Cephal, 57, said he remembers another day, two or two at the lake in similarly bad circumstances, but he didn’t develop as rapidly or become dangerous as Saturday.
“I’ve been on the water for quite some days of the year…I’m in almost all kinds of conditions. It’s something I’ve never seen before and it happened so quickly,” Sephal said. “It was a tragic day on Lake Tahoe.”
In addition to the danger, cold water was below 60 degrees a day, dropping slightly to the low 50s at one point, according to UC Davis’s Tahoe Environmental Research Center. Officials warn that water below 70 degrees will be cold enough to cause hypothermia if a person is exposed to long-term conditions.
After Sephal safely returned the charter to the marina, he soon saw many sailors in trouble.
“There were a lot of people who were in hypothermia and shock,” Sephal said. He said they worked with the marina staff and other locals to set up a kind of triage system to dry out people and gradually warm them up safely and efficiently. At Tahoe Keys Marina, he said he worked almost two hours to meet the needs of at least 60 people. He estimated there were many other marinas and docks that deal with similar situations.
Connor Bagby, 32, was on a family holiday at Camp Richardson in Southlake Tahoe when the sunny afternoon quickly changed. He said the boats began to break away from their mooring and “one at a time they began to crash into the coast.”
He said the pontoon boat reached a beach where the dead motor and the vest of life were invisible.
“It was Super Ely. You were tanning in the sun, and the next thing you knew you could see your breath,” said the Sacramento resident. He called it “Freakstorm.”
Wallace was not on the water on Saturday, but she was outside nearby and said the weather was different from what she could remember in the 30 years she lived there.
“It has to be the craziest Sierra storm to get here,” Wallace said. “It was very violent and very disturbing, and it’s gone.”
By Saturday evening, the sky was blue again and the water was calm. However, the damage was widespread.
As of Monday, Wallace said most of the boats had been removed from the beach and either retired or taken for repairs, but city crews were still working to deal with the loss of debris and sand. The community was still struggling to grasp the deaths of eight boaters.
Sephal said the only takeaway right now must be more aware of safety precautions, preparation and education.
“We’re stuck in the middle of Sierra Nevada, so the weather is very unpredictable,” he said. “It’s really important for recreational boaters, or even professional boaters, to realize that when the white cap rises so quickly, it’s time to put on a life jacket and get out of the water.”
Wallace encouraged people to hire a captain who had won many when he wanted to visit Tahoe and get out into the water.
“Our lakes are totally different,” she said. “It’s an incredibly beautiful and peaceful look, but it’s everything [that] In a situation like what happened on Saturday. ”
