REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. - As the weather warms up and people flock to Delaware beaches, the dangers of rip currents becomes a concern.
Nico Caceres, a captain at the Rehoboth Beach Patrol, is familiar with rip currents at Rehoboth Beach. He says it is the number one reason for rescues. "When you're caught in a rip current, you are getting pushed out to sea, not coming back in."
A rip current is a channel of water that runs away from the beach and out to sea, due to the topography of the ocean bottom. "Whenever you find dips and valleys in the sea floor, and the water has to rush out somewhere, it rushes through that gap in the seafloor, and it pushes the water out to sea," Caceres says.
Many times, swimmers panic in a rip current, because they try to swim back to shore, and make no progress. This is when the potential for drowning increases, say lifeguards. The proper thing to do is swim parallel to the coast until you get out of the rip, but that does not always work.
"There are some rip currents that are really big, and you're struggling to go either left or right, parallel to the shore. You can conserve your energy, by letting the rip take you out until it dies, and then you can find your way back in," says Caceres.
According to the National Weather Service, the best way to identify a rip current is to look for:
- Channel of churning, choppy water
- Area having a notable difference in water color
- Line of foam, seaweed, or debris moving steadily seaward
- Break in the incoming wave pattern
- One, all or none of these clues may be visible
