Hurricane Erin is expected to turn away from the United States but is likely to bring a dangerous threat in the coming days: rip currents along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, as well as Bermuda and the Bahamas.
The life-threatening risks of rip currents were highlighted last month, when Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the actor who rose to fame as a teenager playing Theo Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” in the mid-1980s, drowned while swimming at a beach on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. He was swept away by a rip current, channels of water that flow away from the shore and can drag people along.
The National Weather Service has warned that Erin could produce “life-threatening surf and rip currents, and local authorities have issued warnings for swimmers this week in areas affected by Erin.
Rip currents, even from distant storms, are the third-highest cause of death related to hurricanes. At least three dozen people in the United States have drowned in the surf so far this summer, most of them caught in rip currents, according to the National Weather Service, which tracks surf-zone deaths across the country.
One swimmer died and four others were rescued from the waters off Seaside Heights, N.J., after they became caught in a rip current on Aug. 11, when lifeguards were off-duty, the authorities said. Earlier in July, Chase Childers, a former minor league baseball player, died after rushing into the surf in Pawleys Island, S.C., to save swimmers in a rip current, the police said.
Fatalities do not just occur in oceans. In the Great Lakes region, rip currents caused an average of 50 drownings per year from 2010 to 2017, Chris Houser, the dean of science at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, said.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post How to Stay Safe From Rip Currents, and What to Do if You’re Caught in One appeared first on New York Times.
