Lightning strikes sailboat

COEUR d’ALENE — With a storm rolling in Friday morning, Channing Elvidge began putting up the front window on his boat at the Silver Beach Marina.

Then, he saw lightning strike the top of a sailboat mast about 50 yards across the water on another dock.

“No way that just happened," he thought.

It did. To prove it, thunder shouted from the sky.

“There was just like a boom,” he said.

Elvidge and wife Tammy Schneider hit the deck. She screamed.

“I thought it hit our boat,” Tammy said. “I was so scared.”

The mast was charred and smoking. A few minutes later, Elvidge saw smoke coming from the sailboat’s hatch.

“That’s not good,” he said.

Elvidge didn’t hesitate.

“You don’t think. You just run,” he said.

He charged down the dock and grabbed a fire extinguisher attached to the side decking. As he went, he yelled for someone to call the fire department and shouted for others to grab more extinguishers posted throughout the marina that was packed with boats.

When he reached the sailboat, about a 100-yard dash away, the inside of the boat was on fire and flames were halfway up the mast.

“It took off and burned like you can’t believe,” Elvidge said.

Within minutes, he and about five people began blasting away with fire extinguishers and knocked down the blaze before firefighters arrived.

“A bunch of good guys,” Elvidge said. “Everybody just stepped up.”

No one was on the boat and there were no injuries. The dock was not damaged.

Coeur d’Alene Fire Department Capt. Steve Jones praised their actions.

“I think they were heroic,” he said. “They absolutely prevented further damage from happening to any of the other boats on the marina.”

The 24-foot sailboat suffered extensive damage, but did not sink. It belongs to Rich Relyea, who arrived later and was on the phone with his insurance company.

He said he had owned the boat since 1987 and had many good memories of summers spent sailing with family on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

The boat hadn’t been used often lately, but he had plans to get out on it more this summer.

The storm rumbled from a distance before 9 a.m. It had been slowly moving in, with whitecaps on the lake, as skies turned gray with dark clouds and sheets of rain fell hard.

It hit the marina on Coeur d'Alene Lake Drive with a bang.

“I never heard thunder that loud,” said Dick Miller, who was at the marina on a boat.

Reilly Chapman, Silver Beach Marina employee, was inside the store when she heard “the loudest thunder clap" in her life.

Initially, she thought the store was hit. Then, she hurried outside and saw smoke. She grabbed a fire extinguisher and hurried to help.

"We all just sprinted," she said.

Chapman didn’t know the extent of damage or the situation, but thought lives could be at stake.

“If any other boats got hit we could have major blowups,” she said.

Chapman used the training she and other marina staff received the previous day with fire extinguishers: aim low, left to right.

“The training helped,” she said.

Lindsey Olmstead, marina manager, said staff members go through fire extinguisher training with firefighters each year. A session was in late June and another on Thursday.

She said it’s paid off. There have been two other recent boat fires at the marina, both related to fuel issues.

"Our team was able to put out the boat fire with great speed — but also with great calmness," she said. "I am very proud of our team members — and also very grateful that our local fire department was able to teach our dockhands the skills they need to handle these emergencies as they arise."

Shane Rosenberg was at the marina Friday morning and could sense something in the air.

“I don't know if you’ve been around lightning before, but I felt all the hair sticking up on my body,” he said. “I knew it was coming.”

He saw a huge flash, stood up, and then stopped as thunder roared, seemingly on top of him.

He was still shaken hours later.

"It gets the heart going,” he said.

Ray Wardenaar said the storm was unusual.

“I’ve been here 30 years on this marina. I’ve never seen a lightning storm that close,” he said.

It was powerful.

"You could feel the explosion in the air," Wardenaar said.

Chad Wold was in his car at the marina on a conference call. The clap of thunder was so loud the people on the call thought he had been hit by a car.

“It was pretty nuts,” he said

Jennifer Weeks rushed to the marina after being told a boat at E dock was struck by lightning and was sinking.

Her family's boat was next to Relyea’s on E dock. The strike blew a small hole in the side of her boat, and fried the fuses.

She was relieved it wasn’t worse.

“It could have been under water,” she said.

When it was over, Elvidge was also relieved as he and his wife walked away.

“That’s about as close as you get to lightning without getting hit," he said.