Hundreds of miles away, Hurricane Ernesto still affects US beaches with rip currents, house collapse
Even with the storm hundreds of miles offshore, Hurricane Ernesto was still felt along much of the U.S. East Coast on Saturday, where dangerous rip currents closed public beaches during one of the last busy weekends of the summer season.
The storm’s high waves and swells also caused damage to the coast, with an abandoned beach house crashing into the water near North Carolina’s narrow barrier islands.
National Hurricane Center hurricane specialist Philippe Papin said Ernesto, which made landfall Saturday morning in the tiny British Atlantic territory of Bermuda, is still a “pretty big” hurricane with a “large footprint of seas and waves” that is affecting the central Atlantic coastline from Florida all the way to Long Island, New York.
“That entire region of the eastern U.S. coastline is expecting high seas and significant threats from rip currents along the coast,” Papin said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes rip currents as “strong, narrow channels of fast-flowing water” that move at speeds of up to 8 feet (2.44 meters) per second.
In New York City, officials closed oceanfront beaches to swimming and wading in Brooklyn and Queens on Saturday and Sunday, citing National Weather Service forecasts of a dangerous rip current with waves as high as 6 feet (1.8 meters). Lifeguards were still on the scene, patrolling the beaches and telling people to stay out of the water.
“New Yorkers need to know that the ocean is mightier than you, especially this weekend,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. “Don’t risk your life, or the lives of first responders, by swimming while our beaches are closed.”
The National Weather Service also warned of the potential for dangerous rip currents along popular beaches in Delaware and New Jersey, and even as far north as Massachusetts, and urged swimmers to use “extreme caution” over the weekend.
Farther south along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the National Park Service confirmed the collapse of a house in Rodanthe, one of several communities on Hatteras Island, early Friday evening. No injuries were reported, the park service said.
Other homes in and around Rodanthe appeared to have sustained damage, according to a press release from the park service.
The park service said Friday’s event marks the seventh such home collapse in the past four years along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a 70-mile stretch of coastline from Bodie Island to Ocracoke Island that is managed by the federal government. The sixth home collapsed in June.
The low-lying barrier islands are becoming increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and the flooding of both Pamlico Sound and the sea as the planet warmsRising sea levels are hampering efforts to keep properties in place.
The park service urged visitors to avoid Rodanthe’s beaches and surf this weekend, adding that hazardous debris could remain on the beach and in the water for several miles. A portion of the national seashore north of Rodanthe was also closed to the public. Much of the debris was not removed until early next week after elevated ocean conditions subsided, the park service said.
The National Weather Service has issued coastal flood and high surf warnings for the Outer Banks through Monday morning. It also warned of rip currents and large waves reaching northward along the beaches of Virginia and Maryland this weekend.
In Bermuda, tens of thousands of utility customers were left without power as the Category 1 storm hit. Hundreds of inches of rain were forecast, causing dangerous flooding.
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Haigh reported from Norwich, Connecticut, and Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. AP Radio reporter Jackie Quinn in Washington also contributed to this report.