Posted on 07/27/2008 10:39:47 AM PDT by Alice in Wonderland
Swimmers Warned About Dangerous Undertows, Rip Currents
Four people have died and three vanished within two days at beaches in New York City and on Long Island, authorities said. At least three more have been rescued, they said.
Officers were patrolling the waters off Coney Island Sunday in an attempt to search for a 10-year-old girl who went missing Saturday, CBS station WCBS-TV reported. Akira Johnson and her cousin Tyriek, 10, were playing in the ocean off West 23rd Street when they started to struggle in the water.
People on shore yelled for lifeguards to help.
"She's screaming, "There's kids drowning.' Then they took the little boy out and after that the little girls hand that was the last thing and she was gone," witness Wanda Gonzalez said.
"The last time her little arm went up and that's what I saw and she just disappeared she was gone," said witness Mark Vega.
In Long Beach Saturday evening, a swimmer or surfer died after he was spotted struggling about 150 yards from shore, said Police Lt. Bruce Meyer. Lifeguards were off-duty but rushed to the beach and reached the unconscious 29-year-old man within minutes. Rescuers and hospital staffers were unable to revive him, Meyer said.
A man in his 30s or 40s had to be pulled from the water off Coney Island. No information was immediately available on his condition.
A 42-year-old man died Saturday afternoon after swimming at a beach near the ocean in East Quogue in Suffolk County, said Southampton Town police.
On Friday, when meteorologists recorded a "moderate to strong" risk of rip currents, several swimmers were sucked out to sea, authorities said.
The Coast Guard called off its search Saturday for one of them, a 23-year-old man swept away off Jacob Riis Beach in Queens as a friend tried to rescue him. The beach is in an area known for strong undertows and rip tides, the Coast Guard said.
Authorities looked for the missing man for 23 hours with no success, the Coast Guard said. Firefighters rescued his friend, who was in stable condition Saturday.
At Long Beach, one man drowned and a teenager disappeared Friday while playing football in about 3 to 5 feet of water after lifeguard hours. Another swimmer, a man in his 20s, drowned Friday afternoon at Sandy Bar Beach on Long Island's East End, authorities said.
The spate of swimmers being swept away seemed unprecedented, police said. Long Beach Police Lt. Bruce Meyer said he "cannot recall there ever being back-to-back situations like this."
With stronger and more frequent rip currents possible over the weekend, "only experienced surf swimmers should enter the waters," said National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Connolly.
The rough seas were due to a strong storm system that brought 8-foot waves to the area earlier this week, Connolly said. The weather service monitors offshore conditions for swimmers but does not track trends over time.
If you want to see the basis for my familiarity with the ocean, look at my homepage.
Long Beach is about two and a half miles of south-facing beach with jetties spaced every 200 yards or so. The waves usually break left (westerly direction, sometimes pretty hard.
When there is a lot of water moving as on Friday the action creates at least one sea pus between each pair of jetties. All that water coming in has to go back out so it creates a 'river' or a 'cut' that pushes out past the break. At Long Beach the break is usually only seventy yards from the beach, often less.
Experienced ocean swimmers know that you can't fight the pus, you either swim sideways until you are out of it or go with the flow until it weakens outside the break.
The two who drowned at Long Beach were muslim-named guys from a non-beach town. I would wager that they seldom if ever swim anywhere, let alone the ocean. That's just the way it is here.
They got knocked down in water that was less than head high, panicked and drowned. It happens at least twice a season at long Beach and more than that at Rockaway which has the same set-up. The victims are always in two categories...older white guys who have heart attacks or inexperienced black/latino/south-asian/mid-eastern young people with no experience. Every year.
I used to surf Long Beach in the snow...back in the sixties...then I found out there were waves in Puerto Rico.
That’s insane
I could wade into the water at Rockaway until I was about chest high, then there was a sudden drop. Further on out there's a sandbar accessable during low tide. But only the locals know about it.
Of course, after a storm that drop can be much closer to the shore.
The surf can be nasty here. My brother had his shoulder dislocated by 'triple waves' - twice!
The tides are bad this year at the beaches. I was at Far Rockaway a couple of weeks back and the waves absolutely pummeled us. Really saps the strength without even realizing it.
I've got some pics of my home break (El Porto, CA) on my home page.
An octopus down your pants? That would be rather uncomfortable.
Agreed . . . and more often in the second catagory.
Devon Flanders, 22, of Crown Heights, is now feared drowned, his grieving family told the Daily News Saturday."He swam every day," said his stunned mother, Jayne Flanders, adding that her Trinidad-born son regularly visited Coney Island and Jacob Riis Park during the summer. "Everybody in the Caribbean swam. He was a great swimmer."
Firefighters were able to rescue her son's 23-year-old pal, Brandon Brian, about 9:30 p.m., but not Flanders.
"They need to have more lifeguards and train them better," said Jayne Flanders, who was preparing to make funeral arrangements. "It's unfair this happened to my son."
Now it's the lifeguards fault that her son didn't know the local waters?
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Laugh of the day!
It’s sound advice - particularly for people who are not strong swimmers.
I’ve been out to Jones Beach a few times this month. Didn’t go into the water too much, but I’m happy to report there is an increase in nude sunbathing.
:-)
Beautiful!
Wow. Still so sad.
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