Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. As you just heard Michael describing on the news and beachgoers and beach dwellers, this is for you. Hurricane Erin is set to bring rip currents, and we'll explain what those are, and 10 to 15 foot waves, to our local shores in New York and New Jersey. New York City has closed all its beaches today and tomorrow. You should know that following closures up and down the Jersey shore that began yesterday. Before we talk to Dr. Greg Dusek, senior scientist at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and discuss this, I'm going to give you the full list. Okay, you ready? Besides all New York City beaches, as of the last list, we have the status of swimming restrictions at beaches along first, the Jersey Shore. Asbury Park, red flags, very limited swimming. Atlantic City, same thing. Avon-by-the-Sea, red flags, no swimming. Atlantic City, also no swimming. Bay Head, same thing, no swimming. Belmar, Brigantine, Cape May, Harvey Cedars, Island Beach State Park, no swimming, no surfing, no boogie boarding today or tomorrow.

Long Branch, yellow flags, swimming allowed with caution. That was as of late yesterday. You'll have to check what it is today. Manasquan, no swimming. Ocean City, no swimming and no boogie boards. Ocean Grove, the entire beach will be closed from late this afternoon through Friday morning. Sounds like you can't even go to the sand at Ocean Grove. Seaside Heights, no swimming. Seaside Park, same thing either in the ocean or the bay. Spring Lake, red flags, no swimming. Wildwood, red flags, no swimming at all beaches.

Now, Long Island beaches, closures. Atlantic Avenue Beach, Atlantique Beach, Cedar Beach in Babylon, Cooper's Beach, Cupsogue Beach, County Park. That one. Davis Park, Ditch Plains, Eugene Nickerson Beach, Flying Point Beach, Georgia Beach, Gilgo Beach, Great Gun, Indian Wells Beach, Jones Beach, Lido Beach. I always forget if you say Lido or Lido. It's Lido, like the song. Main Beach, Mecox Beach, Ocean Beach, Ocean Beach Park, which is Long Beach. Overlook Beach, Pikes Beach, Ponquogue Beach, Robert Moses State Park, Sagg Main Beach, Sailors Haven Beach, Smith Point County Park.

I'm up to the S's. Almost done. South Edison Beach, Tiana Beach, Tobay Beach, Two Mile Hollow Beach, W. Scott Cameron Beach, and Watch Hill Beach. Per our information, those are all closed. I guess we should just basically say don't go swimming in New York or New Jersey for the next couple of days. Joining me now to talk about this, including some kind of survival tips if you ever find yourself in a rip current, is Dr. Greg Dusek, senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOOA. Dr. Dusek, welcome to WNYC.

Dr. Greg Dusek: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: What's a rip current?

Dr. Greg Dusek: Rip currents are seaward-directed jets of water that can happen on any beach with breaking waves. That's all your ocean beaches, and it even includes beaches in the Great Lakes. They are caused by waves and how waves break along shore, and they can reach speeds exceeding 5 miles per hour, which probably doesn't sound that fast to a lot of people. When you think about your top Olympic swimmers, they average 5 miles per hour. Even if you're an Olympic swimmer, a rip current can cause problems.

They're the leading cause for drownings at beaches across the US and worldwide. We estimate the total number of drownings per year could be around 100 across the US, so they're a big public safety issue.

Brian Lehrer: Hurricane Erin was a Category 4 storm that's now gone down to a Category 2. What's the difference in impact between those classifications as it affects these rip currents?

Dr. Greg Dusek: It doesn't matter all that much, really, because really once you get waves of more than, say, three or four feet, which aren't that big, are common probably with most large storms. Once you exceed waves of that amount, you're going to have rip currents, and they'll get a little bit stronger, but they're going to be a hazard once they hit that 3 to 4 foot wave mark. Like right now, we're talking about maybe seeing waves of 10 or even 15 feet along New York, New Jersey beaches. At that point, yes, you have rip currents, but the waves are so big, that's your primary safety concern.

Brian Lehrer: How localized are these? I just read a long list of beaches that are closed, but some of them just had yellow flags, more caution.

Dr. Greg Dusek: Rip currents; it depends on the type of rip current you have. Kind of the most common rip current are ones that are caused by changes in the shape of the bottom. For people who go to the beach frequently, you might notice a sandbar near shore. That sandbar has changes in depth, and that influences your breaking waves. You'll often see rip currents where there's channels or deeper spots and in sandbars. Those kind of rip currents can set up and be in a single location for some time. As long as it takes for that sand to move around again.

When you have big storms like this, the waves are so big they can drive rip currents anywhere. It doesn't just have to be caused by the shape of the bottom. You get rip currents called transient rip currents, which basically mean that they can move around, and so they come and go with the waves; they move alongshore. You can't just count on if you saw a rip current in one location, it's going to stay there. It could move over the course of hours or even minutes. When you get these hazardous conditions, you really have to be mindful everywhere at the beach.

Brian Lehrer: Did this change course recently, Hurricane Erin? Because I think I saw some early reports over the weekend when they were projecting days out that as it affects the rip currents, as it affects the beaches, the safety of going in or near the water, that it would affect New Jersey with largely east facing beaches, differently than it would affect Long Island with largely south facing beaches. Did something change?

Dr. Greg Dusek: It's been pretty consistent over the last few days anyway. Certainly, you will see differences with storms depending on the orientation of the beach, and so you can get different conditions in New Jersey and Long Island and I think where you'll end up seeing that in this case in particular from a beach safety standpoint is after the storm passes how quickly does it take for wave heights to drop back down to a safe level where people can start going into the into the water again safely? Certainly, it won't be till next week, I think, but exactly how long will depend on the beach and the orientation of the beach in your particular location.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, listeners, one typo that I had on that list of closures that I read that some of you probably reacted to. I will correct it. I said Ocean Beach Park around Long Beach. How many of you jumped up in your seats right at that moment and said, "No, there, that's Fire Island, you idiot. Don't you know that's Fire Island?" Okay, it's Fire Island. Anybody have questions about this kind of storm and these kinds of impacts or rip currents generally? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692, for our guest, Greg Dusek, senior scientist at NOAA. Joe in Bradley Beach in Jersey, on the Jersey shore. You're on WNYC. Hi, Joe.

Joe: Hi, Brian. Good morning. Love your show, man. Yes, I was on the surf this morning. It's so bad. I take the dog up to Bradley Beach, Spring Lake, and I was actually up at the Hook, Sandy Hook. No one belongs in the water today, and I'm an active swimmer. I saw two surfers. They went out and came right back in. They got so beat up they just couldn't do their dig out there. Nobody should be in the water, not even up to their knees. It's vicious.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Anyone else listening right now who is along any of the shores, maybe you live there, want to report on conditions, you want to describe it, do a little visual description for the audio audience? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Call or text. Dr. Dusek, would the standards be any different for surfing, as the caller cited, he saw a couple of people doing, than for swimming?

Dr. Greg Dusek: Once you get to these large waves like we're seeing from this storm, no, really just you should follow public safety officials like you said really just saying stay out of the water because when you get this chaotic large wave environment from large storms like this, even if you have a surfboard, even if you're an experienced surfer, that can cause problems for you. The best thing you could do is just stay out of the water.

Brian Lehrer: In a text message, listener asks, "Do rip currents pull you underwater, and is that how swimmers drown, or are they just pulled out to sea? Is this the condition where swimmers are told to just swim parallel to the shore?"

Dr. Greg Dusek: Yes, that's a great question. It's a common misconception that rip currents pull you under. They don't. They just pull you away from shore. Really, what ends up happening, though, is as people get pulled from shore, typically your first response is going to be, "Well, I want to get back to shore." People will swim straight back into the rip current. They won't be making progress. Then they start panicking, and that panic you expend energy, you start panicking, and that's usually what ends up causing problems and potentially can result in drowning.

As they mentioned, one of the strategies you can use for rip currents is to swim parallel because you don't want to swim straight back against the current. You won't make any progress. You want to swim along the beach until you feel like you're not getting pulled from shore any longer, and then back to the beach at an angle away from the rip current, and really let the waves push you in. The waves are your friend. They can help push you forward and push you back to shore. That's some of the advice we give.

The challenge with that is you can be a really good swimmer and still potentially have trouble getting back to shore. You might not make progress, you might start getting tired. What we recommend as another alternative is the big thing you want to do is relax and float. If you're not making progress swimming, and then you want to wave and call for help for someone back on shore. Because as long as you can stay above water and you can float if there's folks in the area, if there's someone there that can call and get help, eventually you'll get back in. The big thing is to relax, don't panic, don't expend energy. You really want to try to just stay afloat as long as you can.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to get another first-person observation, this time from the island. Gio in Belmore. You're on wnyc. Hi, Gio.

Gio: Hi. Good morning. I consider myself a pretty decent swimmer. I grew up by the ocean, but I did a silly thing, went past where the lifeguards were, and I've done this before, but I only went up to my knees. I always do when I'm past the lifeguards, and the water looked like the waves were coming in. I knew better, and I could feel myself being dragged out. As I'm swimming along, one moment I'm on the ground, the next moment I'm way below where I should be, and I'm sinking and I'm being pulled out.

I realized immediately that I had to get back to where I could stand up. I would just say to anybody, looks like they're pushing you in, but you never know what the currents going to do underneath. I would definitely stay out of the water right-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Gio, thank you for that warning from an experienced swimmer. Here's the Long Island question that I don't know if you would know the answer to, because I know you're not Long Island-based. Listener asks, "Do warnings apply to the sound beaches on Long Island?" The south shore of Long Island is on the Atlantic Ocean. The north shore is on the Long Island Sound between Long Island and Connecticut if you're far enough out. Do you happen to know?

Dr. Greg Dusek: That's a great question. I'm not sure at the moment what types of warnings are for the sound. Typically, on the sound side, in this case, since waves are coming from the ocean side and the worst of the winds are pretty offshore, I think the greatest impacts, obviously, by far, will be on the ocean side, depending on what happens as the storm passes and what winds look like on the Sound side, you could get some large waves in the Sound as well. Certainly, there's a difference there.

My recommendation would be check your local WFO, which is Upton, the Upton WFO here in New York. You can just go to weather.gov/beach, and you can get your weather information, your beach safety information from whatever beach, whatever location you're going to.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, my producer, who's from Huntington on the North Shore, says they don't generally have waves on the Sound, but everybody should hear the warning that Professor Dusek just gave. Check those local conditions before you go swimming in the Sound, either. Mary in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Yes, hi. Thanks for all this great advice. My question, I guess you just answered it, which is that we had plans to swim on the south shore of Connecticut on Friday. Just go to the beach on Sherwood Island, which is around Bridgeport, I think, and wondering if we should expect problems there. Normally, there are no big waves there.

Brian Lehrer: Mary, thank you. Yes, so that's Long Island 2. I mean, Long Island Sound also, I guess if we want to get granular here, professor or doctor, we could ask, would it be different on the Connecticut side, where it's further from the ocean, than on the north shore of Long Island side?

Dr. Greg Dusek: It can be different, especially depending on winds so, so again, typically on the sound side, you're protected from those ocean swells that come from far away, which is as this storm progresses, the waves are going to be coming from further and further away, not directly caused by winds where you are. In that case, like we were just saying, the ocean side will get most of the wave energy.

Sound side is usually okay, but depending on what the winds do here, if your winds are coming out of the north or out of the south, that will have a difference in terms of the waves you'll see on either side of Long Island Sound, because it's really when winds on the sound side, when winds are coming at you on the beach, that's when you're going to see your largest waves and greatest impact. It'll really be dependent on what the weather conditions are over the next few days, if that's going to be a concern or not.

Again, you want to check your local conditions, check your local forecast. When you show up at the beach, even with that information, you want to take a few seconds to look at the ocean, look at the conditions, and look for potential hazards, large waves, things like that. Don't just rush into the water. That will make sure you're safe at whatever location you're swimming at.

Brian Lehrer: A few more minutes. If you're just joining us, folks with Dr. Greg Dusek, senior scientist at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as we talk about out the rip currents coming to the New York, New Jersey and possibly Connecticut, as we heard in response to the last caller area because of Hurricane Erin and Paul in Morristown has a rip currents story that sounds kind of scary from what I'm looking at on the board. Paul, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Paul: Hi, Brian, thank you. Can you hear me okay?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, we got you just fine.

Paul: Okay. This was a long time ago. It was Indian River Inlet, which is south of Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. It seemed like a regular day. My wife got caught in a rip current. It took us out within seconds, maybe 50 yards from the shore. When I turned around to see her, we realized we were pushed way out. She had such a panic look on her face, and she was flailing. I instantly realized that I couldn't save her because she was flailing so much. I waved my hands to the shore, and lifeguards came out in seconds-- it was amazing-- with their little pontoon things, and they swam both of us back to shore, and she was fine afterwards. It was quite an experience.

Brian Lehrer: Quite an experience. It sounds so scary. Again, on behalf of any listener who might be tempted in the next couple of days, thank you for the warning. Dr. Dusek, he was talking about the role of the lifeguards there. We have a text that says, "Oh, this is actually, you mentioned weather.gov beach, and we looked it up, and there's advice there to only swim at a beach with lifeguards. It says the chances of drowning at a beach with lifeguards are 1 in 18 million from the US Life Saving Association.

Do you want to elaborate on that at all? Is this something to keep in mind? You know that the chances of drowning at a beach with a lifeguard are so, so, so diminished. Maybe it's just common sense, but that status striking 1 in 18 million.

Dr. Greg Dusek: Yes, yes, 100%. That's why when I get asked what's the best thing I can do to stay safe at the beach, it's swim near a lifeguard. By far and away the best thing you can do because they're experts, they know what they're doing, they're really good at their jobs, and they rescue tons of people every year. I think we estimated at one point at USLA guarded beaches, working with USLA was something like over 30,000 rip current rescues made by lifeguards at USLA beaches in a year across the US.

You think about that, how many more drownings would we have if we didn't have those lifeguards? Their lifeguards are awesome. We work with them closely. Then the other role that lifeguards can serve, which I think a lot of people don't think about, is you show up at the beach, you may be next to a lifeguard, and you still aren't sure, like, should I swim? Where's the best, safest place for me to swim at this particular beach? You can always ask them. Lifeguards are there to help you. You can talk to them, say, "Hey, I want to know, are there any rip currents today? Is there any place that might have a hazard? Where should I swim?" They'll let you know. They can be a great resource, not just to save you if you get caught in a rip, but to provide safety guidance in general.

Brian Lehrer: Well, from what you just described there and from that stat that there are so many rip current lifeguard saving people incidents a year in the United States, does that tell us that it's not obvious from looking at the water that there is a rip current or there could be one right there that it's not like really obviously churning and you can't tell just by looking at it?

Dr. Greg Dusek: Yes, it can be very hard to identify a rip current. It can be done. Lifeguards are great at that. Actually, they help collect data for us, which help us improve our rip current models and our rip current forecast because they're so good at identifying them. The average person can do it too, but it takes practice. It's not something you're just going to be able to do right away. What we tell people, if you want to look at the conditions, especially if you're going somewhere where there's not a lifeguard, you want to evaluate whether or not there might be a hazard.

High surf as well as rip currents. If you're looking for rips, you want to stand far back from the water at an elevated position. If you go over the beach access, when you first show up at the beach, those are usually a little bit higher. That's the perfect point to stop, look at the ocean, and see if you see anything that might be a rip. What you're typically looking for are flat spots in the lines of breaking waves, which seems counterintuitive a little bit, like where waves aren't breaking, because typically those waves aren't breaking there because there might be a deeper spot or a channel in the sandbar, which is leading to your rip current.

Then the other thing you want to look at is for things getting pulled from shore. Often, after waves break, you have foam on the water surface. You want to see if you see a line of foam being pulled from shore or, potentially, even sandy or murky water being pulled from shore. Those are indications as well. I would encourage people to look and try to see if they see rips, ideally, see if you see them, and then ask the lifeguard, "Is that a rip current?" Then you can start training yourself in terms of what to look for.

Brian Lehrer: Bottom line, basically, don't go to the beach along Long Island or the Jersey Shore for the next couple of days. Last question from a listener in a text. "For how long is the advisory in effect?" They ask. "Will the beaches be safe by this weekend? It's supposed to be a beautiful weekend."

Dr. Greg Dusek: Yes, that's a great question. I think it will be dependent on your beach. You'll want to check with your local safety officials. What I can say is it looks like wave heights will be elevated through the weekend for most locations in your area. Even if the beaches are open, there's still going to be a high risk for rip currents through the weekend. I would say use caution. Look at whatever your local safety officials are telling you. If it's red flags, don't go in the water. Then once the beaches open up, either in the weekend or early next week, swim near a lifeguard. Like we were just saying, that will drastically improve your chances of having a fun and safe day at the beach.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. Greg Dusek, senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. Number of people are calling and writing in to find out how the budget cuts are affecting all this. I'm not going to put you as a scientist in that position. We'll talk to an administrator about that, but we know that's an issue and just acknowledging that. Thank you very much for all the information today.

Dr. Greg Dusek: Thanks, Brian.

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