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San Francisco Chronicle​

As Lake Tahoe storm turned deadly, another boat was in crisis. This is their harrowing story of survival

The sky darkened over the Johnston family and its guests aboard a luxury ski boat on Lake Tahoe. Within minutes, a cold wind whipped up waves so big they threatened to inundate the craft. The boat's passengers had just finished a leisurely lunch on shore, during a celebratory excursion on a relatively placid day. Now they were in deep trouble. As her husband manned the steering wheel, 53-year-old Dani Johnston ordered the passengers — her 22-year-old son and his seven friends — to do two things: put on life jackets and bail water from the boat using anything they could find. Then she called 911. Answering, South Lake Tahoe dispatcher Nicole Sykes could hear only screaming. It was around 2:20 p.m. on June 21. Then the line disconnected. Sykes sent a text to the caller instead: 'What is your emergency?' The response was direct and dire: 'Boat sinking.' A day that had dawned chilly but beautiful in Tahoe was veering toward tragedy. As a deadly squall swept the lake with no warning, boaters either raced to shore or fought for their lives. Roughly five miles from where the Johnstons were caught in distress, 10 people were thrown into the water as their boat capsized. Eight died and two survived off the rocky shores of D.L. Bliss State Park, marking one of the famed destination's worst-ever catastrophes. In the days since, it has become clear that many more could have died, if not for a series of narrow escapes and harrowing rescues — like that of Johnston and her guests. The incident on the Mastercraft ski boat, which has not been previously recounted in detail, raises questions about how resources were allocated during an emergency that caused widespread damage and panic, straining local agencies. 'Everyone had an emergency,' Sykes said in an interview with the Chronicle. 'Everyone thought they were going to die.' From celebratory to 'serious' Dani and Dan Johnston, 62, were celebrating their son Connor's recent graduation from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo by hosting his friends at their home in Tahoe City, on the lake's northwest edge. The visit was a chance for the engineering grads to relax before starting internships and first jobs. The young friends had visited the Johnstons' home many times, skiing in the winters and wakeboarding in the summers. Most were surfers, athletic and comfortable in open water. Dani Johnston had taken a boat safety class through the Tahoe Yacht Club several years earlier, so she prepared for the Saturday morning boat excursion accordingly: checking weather apps, counting out enough life jackets for all passengers and reminding everyone where they were stored. The first stop of the day was Gar Woods Grill, where the graduates posed for a photo with the restaurant's famous rum punch in hand. The parents said they did not consume any alcohol. The friends wore sweatshirts to brace against the morning chill, but on the lake behind them, the water stretched out calm beneath a sunny sky. For lunch, the group cruised to Round Hill Pines, a resort in Zephyr Cove on the east shore. Johnston said she checked the weather again before departing the dock shortly after 2:05 p.m. Winds were blowing west to east at 5 mph with gusts up to 12 mph, a typical summer pattern. Back on the water, however, the conditions quickly deteriorated. Johnston spotted dark clouds gathering in the north. The winds were picking up. When the first big wave slammed into the boat, she instructed everyone to put on their life jackets. 'This is serious,' she recalled saying. Meteorologists said later that a cold front materialized that afternoon with wind gusts topping 45 mph. Accelerating winds were likely fueled by a phenomenon known as a downburst, which is sparked by a mix of dry and moist air pockets, and can send wind in all directions. Rather than cutting across the middle of the lake as planned, the Johnstons decided to hug the shore and head south toward Tahoe Keys Marina, the closest port of safety. When Dan Johnston told his wife the boat was losing power, she figured it would be better to get help sooner rather than later. So, she placed the 911 call. The ensuing text exchange allowed the dispatcher, Sykes, to pinpoint Johnston's location and dispatch a police boat. Sykes also told the South Lake Tahoe Fire Department to stand by. As calls flooded the line, she knew she would need as many rescuers as possible. Witnesses on the shore were reporting boats coming unmoored or crashing into docks. Lost boaters trapped on the lake called with panic in their voices. Though the 40-year-old dispatcher had handled SWAT calls and mass casualty incidents in her 10-year career, never had a day on the lake been so chaotic, she said. Sykes estimated that she fielded more than 50 calls at the onset of the storm between 2 and 3 p.m. She stayed on the phone only long enough to instruct boaters to strap on their life jackets and to direct them to the closest shoreline. Then she moved to the next call. 'You're almost there, you're almost there,' she recalled telling people. 'Keep going and get the boat to the shore.' A flood of water With first responders on the way, Johnston told her son and his friends to keep bailing. They used empty coolers, trash cans and Stanley cups. The effort appeared to buy them precious minutes in which the boat stayed afloat. 'When it comes to the cold lake and the treacherous conditions, the No. 1 thing you're fighting is time,' Lt. Scott Crivelli of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department said later. About half a mile from shore, between Reagan Beach and the Tahoe Keys Marina, Johnston saw the blue lights of the police boat. An officer asked for a show of hands from those wearing flotation devices; all hands went up. With 5- and 6-foot waves rocking both vessels, it was deemed too dangerous to bring the Johnstons and their passengers aboard the rescue boat. Instead, after several attempts, police officers successfully attached a tow line to the MasterCraft and started pulling it to shore. By then, a fire department rescue boat was also nearby. Waves now crashed over the back of the MasterCraft. The engine compartment opened up and water flooded in, impeding the tow effort. The boat dragged in the water like an open parachute. Johnston recalled looking at the young adults on the sinking boat, knowing she and her husband held their lives and bright futures in their hands. 'We're going in the water. Stay calm,' she told them. Her husband yelled at everyone to swim away from the boat and avoid getting caught in the fabric cockpit cover. Then, another wave capsized the boat, sending all of the passengers plunging into the 58-degree water — a temperature that can immediately induce shock, and within 30 minutes, hypothermia. When Dani Johnston bobbed above water, she saw rescuers diving into the water to assist them. A head count confirmed no one was stuck under the overturned boat. The fire department said later that some of the people in the water didn't have the strength to grasp a rescue rope in their frigid hands or to swim towards first responders. Navigating the choppy water, rescuers pulled some of them to safety, one-by-one. Meanwhile, Dani Johnston, her husband and one of the young women who had been on the MasterCraft started swimming to shore, assisted by the waves. Johnston, a former competitive swimmer and lifeguard, used breaststroke and side stroke to conserve energy. Her life jacket kept her buoyant as her jeans and sweater weighed her down. More firefighters staging on the shore helped guide the swimmers onto a sandy beach. 'We were completely committed' Back at the dispatch center, emergency calls were coming in from a different part of the lake. Callers were distraught as they reported seeing people floating face down in the water near a capsized boat at D.L. Bliss State Park, off the lake's southwest edge. Sykes said she transferred the calls to the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office, which had jurisdiction over the area. With a rescue still underway at the Tahoe Keys Marina, the dispatcher had no available resources to immediately deploy to the new call. 'It was almost simultaneous. … We're pulling people out of the water — we can't release anything,' Sykes said. 'We were completely committed at that time.' From the Tahoe Keys Marina, ambulances transported the Johnstons and their friends to nearby Barton Memorial Hospital as a precaution. Dani Johnston said none of them suffered from hypothermia or other injuries. During the ride to the hospital, the ambulance radio crackled with reports of the search for those whose boat had capsized off the western shore. There was no break for the South Lake Tahoe first responders. As soon as the rescue crews delivered the group safely into the marina and the ambulances dropped them at the hospital, Sykes sent each crew toward D.L. Bliss, which was at least 5 miles away by boat. Six bodies were recovered by nightfall. Two more bodies were found in the following days. Authorities identified the victims as 37-year-old Joshua Pickles, a tech executive from San Francisco; his parents Paula Bozinovich, 71, and Terry Pickles, 73, from Redwood City; his uncle Peter Bayes, 72, of Lincoln (Placer County); and four other friends and family members, including three from New York. The group had gathered to celebrate Bozinovich's birthday. Only two people survived what was supposed to be a joyful outing: Amy Friduss and her mother, Julie Lindsay, whose husband, 63-year-old Stephen 'Zippy' Lindsay, was killed. Friduss and Lindsay were wearing life jackets, officials said. Sykes went home exhausted that night. The dispatcher felt confident she had made the right decisions and was proud of how South Lake Tahoe rescuers saved 10 lives. But she wondered about the drownings: What if she could have gotten resources there? Would the outcome have been different if that call came in first? Sykes said she asked the difficult questions the next day at a multiagency debriefing. They reached a consensus. 'No one saw that boat capsize,' she said of the D.L. Bliss incident. 'We don't think that by the time the calls came in, it could have changed anything for that call.' Many questions remain unanswered about the deaths. The National Transportation Safety Board and the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office are investigating the incident. As Johnston and her family grappled with the emotions of surviving the deadly storm, she said they were grateful for the heroic efforts of their rescuers. She also hopes other boaters can learn a lesson from the ordeal: always be over prepared on the water. 'We're here today,' she said. 'It could have been a very, very different situation.'