Lifeguard and girl are struck by lightning in Cape May, man dies at sandy hook

Lifeguard and girl are struck by lightning in Cape May
By Nick Pipitone

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Severe thunderstorms this afternoon knocked out power to thousands in the Philadelphia area and struck buildings and beachgoers at the Jersey Shore.

A lifeguard and a young girl were struck on a Cape May beach at 1:16 p.m. while fleeing the storm, the Cape May Beach Patrol said.

Lightning strikes caused numerous structure fires in Cape May County and the Egg Harbor Township area of Atlantic County.

The National Weather Service measured wind gusts of 43 m.p.h. at Philadelphia International Airport and hail as large as golf balls in Brooklawn, Camden County.

Peco Energy Co. reported that about 49,000 customers lost power in the Philadelphia and its suburban Pennsylvania counties due to downed trees and branches and that, by 5:30 p.m., power had been restored to about 20,000.

Lightning hit a substation in Bucks County, causing some outages, but Peco was able to quickly switch to another unit.

In Cape May, the lightning victims were treated by the Cape May Fire Department and taken to the Cape Regional Medical Center, where they were listed in stable condition tonight, said a hospital spokesman.

The beach patrol began clearing the beach at 1:13 p.m. at the Coulton Court beach, said Lt. Harry Back of the Cape May Beach Patrol, and the two were struck minutes later. The girl was holding an umbrella, said Tim Gay of the Cape May Fire Department. Her right arm was injured.

"This one was scary because there was no thunderstorm activity, just rain," Back said. "But as soon as it got to the shore, it just blew up into a thunderstorm, so it didn't give us much time to get people away. It doesn't usually happen that way."

The beach was reopened shortly at 3 p.m. so patrons could retrieve their belongings, then closed for the rest of the night. Back said it was the first such incident at a Cape May beach since a father and son were struck in 1992.

An hour earlier, one man was killed and two other people were injured when they were struck by lightning while on a beach in Sandy Hook, Monmouth County, N.J., the National Park Service said.