VIDEO: Storm turns beach umbrellas into flying javelins

Why Americans feel that a beach is the correct place to be as a storm strikes land will forever be beyond us Europeans.

This video, shot in Ocean City, Maryland, shows the evolution of the common beach umbrella into a flying steel spear - with just a little help from a thunderstorm's arrival.

Skip to the one-minute mark if you're tight on time to see beach staff flee from the rushing horde of terrifying blue umbrellas. Luckily, no-one was hurt.

This kind of incident can be quite dangerous - in 2010, a woman in Baltimore was stabbed through the thigh by a plummeting beach umbrella. In a similar incident earlier this year, several children were injured in Florida when a bouncy castle was lifted up by a sudden tornado.

Still, since no-one was injured in this incident, we can happily put it to some symphonic music for added comedy.

- Via Gawker's The Vane.