New York City beaches will close to swimmers on Wednesday and Thursday, officials said, as Hurricane Erin brings dangerous rip currents and rough waters to the East Coast. Swimmers were barred from New Jersey and Delaware beaches on Tuesday, with many set to stay closed until Friday or the weekend.
The Category 3 storm was churning through the Atlantic, several hundred miles east of the Carolinas, on Tuesday. Portions of the Outer Banks of North Carolina were under a state of emergency and a mandatory evacuation order.
Even though Erin is expected to ultimately turn away from the coast, a number of beaches from New York to Florida face a high risk of rip currents through Wednesday evening, according to the National Weather Service.
High waves are also in the forecast this week for parts of Long Island and New England. Beaches in Suffolk and Nassau Counties on Long Island could be hit with breaking waves as high as 11 to 15 feet on Thursday, the Weather Service said in an advisory.
The beach closures in New Jersey, announced on Monday and Tuesday, affected Asbury Park, Avon-by-the-Sea, Bay Head, Belmar, Bradley Beach, Margate and Wildwood on the Jersey Shore. Island Beach State Park will be closed through at least Thursday.
In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams and Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, the parks commissioner, said Tuesday that city beaches would be closed for several days.
Lifeguards will not be on duty during the beach closures, according to the announcement, but they and members of the Parks Enforcement Patrol will be stationed along the coastline to prevent people from attempting to swim.
“We strongly urge all New Yorkers to heed these warnings and not risk their lives by entering the water,” Ms. Rodriguez-Rosa said in a statement.
The U.S. Coast Guard issued a warning on Tuesday to people on offshore ships, cautioning that waves could rise up to 15 feet.
“We are going to be a broken record this week,” the National Weather Service said in a social media post on Tuesday morning. “The ocean and specifically the surf zone will be dangerous this week.”
Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey urged people not to swim in the ocean over the next few days, citing the risk of rip currents and high waves.
In a news conference on Tuesday morning, Mr. Murphy said he would encourage the state’s beach towns to officially close their shores to swimmers.
“It’s a weird dynamic, admittedly,” he said, explaining that beachgoers would not see thunder, lightning or other telltale signs of dangerous surf. But they should exercise caution and not enter the water, he added, despite it being “one of the biggest beach weeks of the summer.”
Even as the hurricane moves further away, “the winds will still find us,” Shawn LaTourette, New Jersey’s commissioner of environmental protection, said at the news conference.
Mr. LaTourette said to expect extreme winds and riptides “at least until the early part of the weekend.”
In Delaware, the towns of Dewey Beach and Fenwick Island issued swimming prohibitions. The city of Rehoboth Beach, which issued an extreme hazard warning to beachgoers on Tuesday, said on social media that heavy surf and rip currents would most likely increase through Thursday.
Mr. Murphy said at the news conference that New Jersey also faces a high risk of flooding on Thursday evening, which is when, he said, the dangerous conditions are expected to come to a head.
Floods have rocked New Jersey this summer, leveling homes and killing at least two people after severe rain in July. On Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service issued a coastal flood advisory for Cape May County in New Jersey, and Kent and Sussex Counties in Delaware.
Assateague State Park in Maryland was also closed for swimming on Monday because of dangerous surf conditions, according to the state parks system.
Storms that are close to shore create lightning, wind, rain and other indications of danger. With far-off storms that can bring dangerous rip currents, there may be fewer visible signs of risk. That means a person entering the ocean on a sunny day may not realize it’s unsafe to swim.
At least three dozen people in the United States have drowned in coastal waters so far this summer. Most were caught in rip currents, according to the National Weather Service.
One swimmer died and four others were rescued from the waters off Seaside Heights, N.J., after they were caught in a rip current last week, when lifeguards were off-duty, the authorities said. And a 13-year-old girl drowned in the waters off Belmar, N.J., after lifeguards had left for the day.
In July, a man died after rushing into the surf in Pawleys Island, S.C., to save swimmers in a rip current, the police said.
Yan Zhuang contributed reporting.
Taylor Robinson is a Times reporter covering the New York City metro area.
Mike Ives is a reporter for The Times based in Seoul, covering breaking news around the world.
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