Officials in California are issuing a new warning about sneaker waves, an ocean hazard that lifeguards say is especially dangerous because the surf can look completely normal and then a much larger wave surges in without warning. Authorities say the threat has been present for weeks along the state's coastline, prompting repeated alerts to beachgoers and anglers.
The danger was driven home by the experience of Bay Kadat, a 47-year-old who was fishing south of San Francisco when a sneaker wave swept her into the water. New video captured the moment she was pulled in, and she has since described how the wave took her by surprise and tumbled her beneath the surface as she struggled to get back up.
Kadat said she was trapped underwater for about four terrifying minutes before she managed to surface. Fellow fishermen nearby rushed in to help, throwing her a rope and pulling her out of the water. She was treated for hypothermia and is now recovering, and she has shared her survival story with ABC News.
Lifeguards describe the phenomenon as deceptively simple. Looking out on what appears to be a flat ocean, swells roll in at a steady pace, but every once in a while a much larger swell, the sneaker wave, pushes in far beyond where the water normally reaches. That sudden surge is what catches people standing on rocks or near the shoreline off guard.
Kadat's close call came amid roughly two weeks of warnings up and down the California coast. The same conditions have proved deadly in recent days: two college students, both young women, were swept off a beach near Santa Cruz and did not survive, underscoring how quickly the ocean can turn dangerous along the state's shoreline.
For her part, Kadat said she knows how lucky she was to survive and plans to take precautions before heading back to the water. She said she will carry a whistle, a life jacket and an air horn, and will no longer go to the beach alone, a personal response that mirrors the broader message officials are trying to send to anyone visiting the California coast.