Beaches close in Mid-Atlantic as Hurricane Erin brings deadly rip

By Taylor Robinson and Mike Ives

New Jersey and Delaware beaches were closed to swimmers Tuesday, in the middle of the summer tourist season, as Hurricane Erin brought dangerous rip currents to the East Coast.

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 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 New York City; Long Island in New York; New Jersey 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 Thursday, the weather service said in an advisory.

The beach closures in New Jersey, announced Monday and Tuesday, affect 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.

New York City beaches remained open Tuesday, but swimmers were advised to stay out of the water, the weather service said in its alert. “Life-threatening swimming and surfing conditions” are expected to roughen beaches in the Brooklyn and Queens boroughs on Wednesday and Thursday, the weather service said.

The U.S. Coast Guard also issued a warning Tuesday to people on offshore ships, cautioning that waves farther out in the ocean could rise up to 15 feet.

“We are going to be a broken record this week,” the weather service said in a social media post Tuesday morning. “The ocean and specifically the surf zone will be dangerous this week.”

Gov. Phil 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 Tuesday morning, 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 farther away, “the winds will still find us,” Shawn LaTourette, New Jersey’s commissioner of environmental protection, said at the news conference.

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 Tuesday, said on social media that heavy surf and rip currents would most likely increase through Thursday.

Murphy said at the news conference that New Jersey also faces a high risk of flooding 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 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 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 this summer. Most were caught in rip currents, according to the weather service.

One swimmer died and four others were rescued from the waters off Seaside Heights, New Jersey, after they were caught in a rip current last week, when lifeguards were off-duty, authorities said. And a 13-year-old girl drowned in the waters off Belmar, New Jersey, after lifeguards had left for the day.

In July, a man died after rushing into the surf in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, to save swimmers in a rip current, police said.