This advice may save your life at the beach: How to identify, swim away from rip currents
Memorial Day weekend is just over a week away and will bring throngs of people to Florida's beaches, as it is widely considered the unofficial 'start of the summer' in the U.S.
And while we share the ocean with sharks and the venomous Portuguese Man o' War, which can bite or sting, there's an ever-present danger in the water that doesn't have a fin or tentacles: rip currents.
Rip currents are powerful, sometimes deadly, channels of water that can sweep a swimmer quickly away from shore. Just two weeks ago, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Deputy Billy Crocker helped rescue three children from a rip current at Huguenot Memorial Park and resuscitated an 8-year-old girl who'd taken on water in her lungs.
Deputy Crocker spoke with the USA TODAY Network-Florida about the dangers of rip currents and how to identify them at the beach.
Here's what a rip current is, how it's different from undertow and how to spot a rip current from the sand.
Rip currents are powerful channels of water that flow quickly away from shore. They're usually found at low spots or breaks in sandbars and near structures like jetties or piers.
Rip currents can easily be seen from the shore with the naked eye, but you have to know what to look for. And they're much more difficult to see when you're in the water.
Since rip currents are an effect of underwater geography and water flow, they aren't tied to the weather. Stormy weather can cause rip currents to form, but they're just as likely on bright, sunny days at the beach. Rip currents can be found at any beach with waves, at any time.
'Measured at speeds up to 8 feet per second (more than 5 miles per hour), rip currents can be faster than an Olympic swimmer,' NOAA says.
You're swimming along, enjoying the ocean water, when suddenly you get knocked off your feet and feel like you're in a rushing underwater river. You try swimming to shore but the current has you in its grip, pulling you farther out to sea.
Eventually, the current will dissipate, but not before it drags you along with it, no matter how strong of a swimmer you are. Fortunately, they're not difficult to deal with if you stay calm. Most of the time when someone succumbs to the power of a rip current, it's because they got too tired while swimming against it. And the way out of a rip current (see below) is not to swim against it.
'Measured at speeds up to 8 feet per second (more than 5 miles per hour), rip currents can be faster than an Olympic swimmer,' NOAA says.
No. Rip currents and undertow are not the same thing.
'Undertow is a term used to describe the current beneath the surface when waves are breaking upon the shore,' NOAA says. 'Undertow is often mistakenly used to describe rip currents. It is also often associated with the strong backwash after breaking waves.'
'To check for rip currents at the beach, stand back from an elevated position, like a dune line or beach access, and look for places where waves are not breaking,' NOAA says.
These signs can indicate that a rip current is present, according to NOAA:
A channel of churning, choppy water
An area of water that is a notable difference in color
A line of foam, or debris moving steadily offshore
A break in the incoming wave pattern
'Sometimes the rip will actually take the foam that's up by the shore, created from the waves crashing, and suck it into that rip current and you'll get a foam line that will trail into that rip current,' Deputy Crocker said.
'And you can see that foam line, too. So, it's really imperative that a person educates themselves when they go to the beach that not only (are) there creatures in the water, but something actually more dangerous – the water itself.'
Yes, you can swim away from a rip current. You just have to know in which direction to swim.
'A rip current will pull you out, but it will not pull you down,' Deputy Crocker said. 'What happens is, when you realize you're in it (and) don't know how to mitigate it, you start swimming against it and you wear yourself out, become tired, frustrated, and you give up then go down.'
To escape a rip current, you don't swim against it. Since the rip current is so powerful, swimming against it will just tire you out and likely cause you to panic. Swimming parallel to the shore is the only way out of a rip current once you're swept up in one.
Deputy Crocker started patrolling the beach at Huguenot Memorial Park part-time since 2017 and spent the last four summers patrolling the beach full-time, in which time he said he's seen three casualties due to rip currents.
'At our beach, we (JSO) do 20 to 30 rescues from rips just in the summertime,' Deputy Crocker said. 'Our ocean rescue lifeguards sitting in chairs are only budgeted from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend.'
Contributing: C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY Network - Florida
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Beach safety and Florida rip currents: How to see or swim out of one
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