A quiet afternoon at a marina in Seaford, on Long Island, was shattered when a boat exploded, injuring a woman and sending a jolt through the surrounding neighborhood. The blast, in Nassau County, turned a routine day on the water into an emergency, and left those nearby describing how powerfully they felt it.
The explosion happened around 2:00 PM. Witnesses described flames coming off the side of the boat in the moments afterward, a visible sign of how the incident unfolded at the water's edge. The timing and the scene quickly drew the attention of neighbors and emergency crews.
One person nearby tried to take matters into his own hands. A neighbor attempted to put out the flames with a hose, stepping in before firefighters arrived in an effort to keep the situation from getting worse along the side of the boat.
An account of how it happened came from someone close to the outing. A man who said he was supposed to be part of the boat trip that day explained that his friend had one engine on, and that it blew when he went to start the other motor. In his telling, the explosion came at the moment the second engine was being started.
The human cost of the blast fell on one person in particular. A woman was taken to the Nassau County Medical Center burn unit, an indication of the kind of injuries the explosion was capable of causing to anyone close to it when it went off.
Officials pointed to a key detail about the boat's condition just before the blast. According to them, the boat had just been refueled when the explosion happened. That sequence, with fresh fuel on board followed by an attempt to start an engine, framed how investigators were looking at the incident.
By the time help reached the scene, the worst of it had passed. Fire officials say that when crews arrived, the fire was almost out, and that the boat itself sustained only minor damages. Even so, the force of the blast was unmistakable to those living nearby, with neighbors close to the marina saying they could feel their houses shake when the explosion happened.