As beachgoers in South Florida enjoyed the warm weather, they were being urged to avoid going into the water as rip currents continue to be a risk.<\/p>\n
Ocean Rescue teams were seen patrolling along the shores in South Beach on Saturday as people went into the water, but due to strong rip current warnings, swimming was not recommended.<\/p>\n
NBC6 spoke to several people who decided to avoid the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not today,” said a beachgoer. “It\u2019s risky, and I\u2019m here with my daughter. I will not take that chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the beach, two flags were blowing in the wind: a red flag, which means high surf and or strong currents, and a purple flag, which means there is dangerous marine life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the red flags, so I kinda know that,\u201d a beachgoer said.<\/p>\n
But those warnings didn’t stop people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great,” said a beachgoer. “The water is quite warm, and it\u2019s not as strong as they say.\u201d<\/p>\n
While others decided to opt out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s too cold\u2014it\u2019s too cold and I can\u2019t swim,” said a beachgoer.<\/p>\n
But South Beach wasn’t the only place that was being impacted by strong currents.<\/p>\n
Last weekend, more than 100 people were rescued in Fort Lauderdale and at least two people were taken to the hospital<\/p>\n
In Miami-Dade, there were more than 450 rescues, and 300 of those rescues were tied to rip currents.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people are not aware of the ocean, or they come down here and they don\u2019t know what rip currents are,” said Mitch McCrady, with Ocean Rescue. “They tend to go where there aren\u2019t waves or waves aren\u2019t as big. Unfortunately, that\u2019s for curtains are in the deeper channels.\u201d<\/p>\n
The advice is to stay calm, float and swim parallel to shore.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, lifeguards are keeping their eyes peeled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking through the binoculars at people’s faces to see if they\u2019re stressed out or if his hair in their face, that\u2019s another sign, or if they\u2019re climbing the ladder, so you know if I need to make a rescue or prevent,” said Anthony Giuseppetti, a lifeguard at Fort Lauderdale Beach.<\/p>\n
The rip current warnings apply across the South Florida coastline, and lifeguards are making sure people are staying safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As beachgoers in South Florida enjoyed the warm weather, they were being urged to avoid going into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,807],"class_list":["post-228359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-south-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}