Silent, unseen danger lurks at beach

Rip currents, which can challenge strongest swimmers, kill 100 people a year in nation The skull and crossbones evidently wasn't enough, so the Isle of Palms rehoisted its sign Monday warning people to stay out of Breach Inlet. Every summer, the problem is the same all along the coast: Everybody wants to get in the water, and too few pay heed to warnings about rip currents. Underestimating the undertow can be dangerous. On Sunday, Folly Beach firefighters pulled a Pennsylvania woman out of the water; an 18-year-old man drowned in the surf at Myrtle Beach on Saturday. Most people, visions of Jaws swimming in their heads, never realize that the most deadly thing lurking underwater might be a force of nature. But rip currents kill more people in a year than hurricanes, floods or sharks. About 100 people nationwide are killed in the currents every year. In the past four years, at least 27 people have died in the Carolinas after running afoul of rip currents. "A lot of people not familiar with the beach just go out too far," Scott Ilderton of James Island said Monday while watching people frolic in the Folly Beach surf. "Too many people just don't respect the ocean."  Spencer Rogers, a specialist in coastal processes with the North Carolina Sea Grant, says one of the biggest problems is that rip currents are a difficult threat to see; and most of the time they aren't strong enough to be deadly.  "The beaches, particularly those with supervision, are relatively safe places," Rogers said. "It's only a few days the currents are fast enough to become life-threatening. But when they are, a non-swimmer or an Olympic swimmer is in trouble." Basically, rip currents are channeled currents flowing away from the shore. While the currents are always there, they can become stronger when there is a narrow passage for the water flowing onto the beach to retreat. "There is a lot of water coming into the shore, and it has to get back out," says Stephen Keebler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C., which tracks rip currents along the Grand Strand. A break in a sandbar can help create the effect. Anyone caught in the rush of water will be pulled out to sea. Rogers says the most encouraging thing about rip currents in the Carolinas is that they tend to be narrow, between 10 and 30 feet wide. That's why people caught in the outgoing flow are told to swim parallel to the beach. While fighting the current is nearly impossible, it's relatively simple to get out of its path and then swim back to shore. Problem is, most people panic. The U.S. Lifesaving Association says eight out of 10 times a lifeguard has to go into the water, it's to pull someone out of a rip current. Breach Inlet is sort of the classic example of an ongoing rip current -- imagine the Isle of Palms and Sullivan's as sandbars. The water rushing from behind the island and out to sea creates a nasty undertow and a surfeit of sandbars that unsuspecting tourists delight in walking on -- despite the signs warning of $500 fines, and another that says "14 drownings, don't be next."  "We probably get called out there a couple of times a day warning people," Lt. Raymond Wright of the Isle of Palms Police Department said. "They are not supposed to even put their feet in the water. But we'd have to have somebody there all the time to enforce it."

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