Many families made their way to the lakes for the unofficial end of the summer, but on Sunday afternoon, those on Lake Ray Hubbard were greeted by rain, gusty wind and lightning.
"You know we come out for an adventure and we got one," said Richard Love who spent the day with his family on the water.
He said they were on their boat when the storm rolled in. Love said between the high wind, lightning and what felt like hail, they had to seek shelter under the I-30 bridge.
"There were some high winds, came out of nowhere. You could see everybody leaving at the same time out there. There were about 30 or 40 boats out there. About ten of us took cover underneath the bridge. We were probably trapped underneath there for a good 30 to 45 minutes with very high winds. A couple of them were hitting the bridge columns and and some people took off to try to make it to the boat dock, but road it out to the very end," said Love. "It was fierce, this thing turned into an ocean real quick.”
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"We saw a lot of boats going out there, and bringing boats back in, towing them back in I know there were a lot of boats waiting under I-30 until the storm passed, it was just scary, I've been out there before when it's like that, and won't do it again," said Roger Acosta.
He said he and his family had made it out about half a mile and decided to turn around to the dock.
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"It was just kind of calm and then it started coming in, and we started seeing whitecaps and then family said 'What do you want to do?' and I said, 'You know what, let's just bring it on in, let's be safe," said Acosta.
Captain's Cove Marina said it had to close about an hour early for safety reasons due to the inclement weather.
"I have mixed feelings about it, like you said this is the holiday, it kind of ruined some of our revenue and business, but the lake really needed the rain, so that's why I'm happy about it," said Cameron Starr who works at the marina.
They can't use their gas to refuel boats for about 30 minutes after lightning is detected in the area. That's what happened to Nevien Albanna-Wilson and her family as they tried to rent a boat.
“We did not get to go on the boat, at all. It started to rain, at first it was a little bit so we waited it out for an hour and a half and it was pouring, and then it started lightening so they told us we couldn’t get fuel for the boat, so we were headed back home, " said Albanna-Wilson. "Very bummed out, I’m a teacher and I was looking forward to this and being with my family, so I’m very bummed out.”
She said even though they were not on the boat, they still took water safety seriously as they were on the dock.
"So of course you see all the kids wearing their life jackets, we made them wear it the entire time, even though we were on the dock," said Albanna-Wilson. "So it’s very important to be safe out there, Even if we’re great swimmers we want to protect our kids and protect ourselves.”
Starr said he expects they'll be busy on Monday when they open for the holiday. He too echoed the importance of water safety.
"Biggest thing is safety especially out on the water, so wear your life vest. I you have trouble swimming stay on the boat if you don’t want to get on the water just please be safe," said Starr.
On Sunday first responders recovered the body of a teenager who went missing on Friday evening in Lake Ray Hubbard.
