Dust devil causes chaos at Luxor pool in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS — Chaotic moments were caught on camera in a video posted to social media when a dust devil hit a Las Vegas resort pool, sending furniture and small objects flying.

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Video posted to TikTok shows a funnel of air picking up pool chairs and throwing people to the ground on the rooftop pool at the Luxor Hotel and Casino.

Describing it as a “mini-tornado,” Cesar Paez posted a video of the aftermath at the pool to Instagram, showing paramedics at the scene treating people who were tossed to the concrete.

“The quickness of it — there was nothing we can do, there was nothing anybody can take cover or anything it happened so fast,” Paez told KVVU.

It wasn’t a tornado that hit the pool but rather a dust devil, which is smaller and less intense than a tornado, according to the National Weather Service. Dust devils form when the ground surface becomes hotter than the air above it, and a pocket of cooler air rises quickly, creating a vortex.

“All of a sudden when it gets to the concrete, it just went like 0-100,” Paez told KVVU. “And it went so fast and it hit for maybe 5-8 seconds.”

“The water started spinning and when my friends and I saw that we turned and covered our heads like we would in a tornado drill and then I looked up and saw chairs flying — ran over to get our stuff, all our stuff was gone,” Darla Kersten, who was at the pool, told KVVU.

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