After making 70 water rescues on Monday — the town of Wrightsville Beach, along with ocean rescue, decided to declare a no-swimming advisory until Friday because of the increase in swell activity and the presence of strong rip currents. The town of Carolina Beach has issued a similar advisory.
Sam Proffitt is the director of Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue. He said, this week, they're staffing 13 stands, six ATVs, two side-by-sides, a jet ski, and trucks from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. They cover mainly a four-mile stretch of beach.
“Help police yourself. Stay out of the water. We're obviously going to be very proactive if we can to get to people before they get in distress. But again, if you're getting out and swimming, you're making that decision; it's a very poor decision. We've done all we can to encourage you not to,” he said.
Even if a patron knows how to swim out of a rip current by swimming parallel to shore, that might not even help, Proffitt said, with the unstable longshore conditions. The longshore current is when a wave reaches the coastline and runs parallel to the shoreline— and it’s heavily dependent on wind direction.
“With some of these larger, very powerful, rip currents, is it's not always a straight line. It's not always pulling you out. Sometimes they go and then they start to turn with that longshore and almost creates this, almost like a whirlpool effect to where you're going to spin,” he said.
Town officials said they’ll reassess the temporary no-swim order by Friday to see if they will lift it by the weekend.
“I know [Tuesday] is going to be super nice out. You can hang out on the beach. You do things like that, but you do not need to be going out in the ocean swimming,” he said.
For Wednesday evening, Proffitt said, according to recent models, Wrightsville Beach could see up to 10-12 foot waves.
Below: National Weather Service briefing for Tuesday morning.
