TOP: More than 500 rip currents 

 safety signs are now posted along 

 the North Carolina shoreline. 

 BOTTOM: Kitty Hawk's ocean rescue 

 team provides safety lessons and 

 monitors water conditions. 



be linked to rip currents. That total may not include rescues by other 

 beachgoers, police and rescue squads. 



Best tells of one day a few years back, when five people on plastic rafts 

 and other floats were caught in a rip current not far from Topsail Island's 

 northern tip. 



While the rescue team members, each wearing a lifejacket, were 

 helping that crowd, another emergency was reported less than a mile away. 

 So, Best headed to the second location. 



"Nine people were in the water, making a human chain to help one 

 person caught in the rip, but those at the end of the chain were getting pulled 

 away," Best recalls. "We gathered them and took them parallel to the beach." 



Swimming parallel to shore — rather than fighting the rip current — 

 is a focus of the educational efforts. Most trouble spots are less than 30 feet 

 wide. 



If you cannot swim across the rip current, float calmly until it dissi- 

 pates, usually just beyond the breakers — then swim diagonally to shore. 

 "If you cannot swim, stay in wading depths close to shore," Rogers advises. 



Emerald Isle physician Arthur H. Hemmerlein recalls his family's 

 encounter with a rip current years ago: "My wife and son were on inner 

 tubes, and suddenly they started heading out to sea," Hemmerlein says. 

 "I went out to pull them back in, but I didn't really know what to do. 

 Luckily, we had something to hang onto." 



Later, when Hemmerlein saw Sea Grant's rip current posters — 

 with simple instructions and illustrations — he appreciated the direct 

 message. He encouraged the Sea Grant office to transfer the message and 

 graphics to a brochure that he could provide his patients. 



Hemmerlein then purchased 5,000 brochures that have been given away 

 by rescue squads and tourist locations throughout Carteret County. Overall, 

 more than 50,000 Sea Grant rip current brochures have been distributed in 

 North Carolina and across the country. 



TURNING TO SCIENCE 



«A deadly series of rip currents in the summer of 2000 got the attention 

 of Steve Pfaff and other NWS staff along the North Carolina coast. At least 

 10 fatalities were reported in the state that year. 



Pfaff, who heads marine outreach efforts in the NWS office in 

 Wilmington, knew of Sea Grant's safety program, but he wanted to go 

 further — to begin forecasting when conditions would be optimal for rip 

 currents along individual stretches of shoreline. 

 He turned to Rogers and others for background on particular geological features of the 

 North Carolina shoreline. And he looked to NWS offices in Florida and Sea Grant researchers 

 at the University of Florida for factors used in rip current forecast models. 



By Memorial Day 2001, the weather service had unveiled an online rip current forecast 

 system for the Wilmington region that stretches from Topsail Island to Myrtle Beach, S.C. 

 In the Morehead City NWS office — which includes the Crystal Coast and Dare County 



8 EARLY SUMMER 2002 



