ST. PETE BEACH, Fla.—The Fourth of July on the stretch of the Gulf of America known as St. Pete Beach began with a thundering sky and popping lights, not from fireworks but a wave of lightning storms coming in off the open water.
But the dark skies, booming thunder, and flashing lightning did not deter the day’s beachgoers. In fact, it would take lightning striking the beach and some of their fellow beachgoers to get most of them to retreat to the safety of their cars.
“We held it down as long as we could, and then once the lightning hit, like very close, and we felt a little tingle in our bodies, and figured that was [time to go],” Jeff Majias told The Epoch Times….