Bottom line: Ocean Beach don’t play.
Ahead of a sunny Memorial Day weekend, the San Francisco Fire Department is urging anyone headed to the city’s beachfront to, in no uncertain terms, stay the hell out of the water.
“Ocean Beach is its own animal. And we want to just have people aware of it,” said Mariano Elias, a Fire Department spokesperson. “Because people have died. … That is the reality.”
Unless you’re a very strong swimmer or surfer familiar with the water at this beach and have reviewed the most recent tide charts, the general recommendation is “don’t go into the water,” he said.
The warning, issued in partnership with local offices of the National Park Service and National Weather Service, which help manage and monitor the shoreline, follows a series of recent instances of people getting swept away by the beach’s notoriously strong rip currents.
In one fatal incident this month, a man who tried to retrieve his dog from the water at Ocean Beach near Lawton Street got caught in the current and lost consciousness. Two bystanders pulled him out of the water, attempted CPR and called 911. Fire Department rescuers were unable to revive him, and he was pronounced dead, Elias said, noting that the dog made it out of the water on its own.
The department has not yet released information on the man’s identity, he added.
Two days later, on a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon, members of the department’s surf rescue team responded to another incident, near Fort Funston, where a young man from Modesto went swimming and got similarly pulled out by the current, Elias said. The man’s younger brother jumped in to try to help him but got caught as well, and he ended up fighting the current for about 20 minutes before making it back to shore, completely fatigued, with his unconscious brother in tow, onlookers reported.
“This has happened before, I’ve seen it in my career, where a family comes to the beach to enjoy the water and the warm weather,” said Elias, whose department fields an average of about 45 Ocean Beach-related rescue calls each year. “It’s warm, so they want to get in the water and swim.”
A fire rescue crew was able to revive both brothers after transporting them to the parking lot on the cliff above the beach and performing life-saving measures.
Elias, who was part of that day’s rescue operation, noted that when members of a surf rescue crew respond to an incident like this, it takes their entire fire station offline for the duration of the rescue.
“It does take quite a few individuals to do an operation like this,” he said. “Someone in the water would take out that whole station out of play for another 911 call.”
A rip current, sometimes referred to (incorrectly) as a rip tide, is defined as a localized current that flows toward the ocean “perpendicular or at an acute angle to the shoreline,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It commonly forms close to shore around low spots or breaks in sandbars, as well as near structures like jetties and piers.
A rip current can look like a strip of darker water forming a gap in the waves breaking around it, and it is much easier to spot from higher ground, according to the National Weather Service.
“A person caught in a rip can be swept away from shore very quickly,” according to NOAA’s site, which notes that the currents don’t actually pull you under and emphasizes the importance of not panicking if caught in one.
The best way to escape a rip current is by swimming parallel to the shore instead of toward it, since most rip currents are less than 80 feet wide. A swimmer can also let the current carry them out to sea until the force weakens, because rip currents stay close to shore and usually dissipate just beyond the line of breaking waves, NOAA’s site said.
The 3.5-mile expanse of Ocean Beach lining San Francisco’s western perimeter is widely considered among the most dangerous stretches of urban shoreline in the country, the force of its rips fueled by billions of gallons of water that slosh in and out of the Golden Gate during each tidal shift, creating unusual lateral currents. Additionally, the beach faces prevailing westerly swells and winds, and its coarse-grained sand creates a steep gradient, all of which helps strengthen the force of rips.
Although warning signs are posted at the entrances to the beach, there are no lifeguards, and the water can often appear deceptively calm, veiling the forces beneath its surface. Even shallow areas can be dangerous, with instances of people being swept out in just 3 feet of water.
“Ocean Beach is NOT a swimming beach, and the public should NOT enter the water,” the fire department’s joint press release states. The ocean, it said, is “insidiously dangerous in the summer months, luring people in during times of heat and seemingly benign conditions only to be swept into cold, turbulent waters.”
This statement encourages people who want to swim to go to nearby Stinson Beach, across the bridge in Marin, where Golden Gate National Recreation Area staffs on-duty lifeguards seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
The statement goes on to note that the Pacific coastline attracts visitors from around the world for “its rugged beauty,” imploring visitors to “live to share your wonderful stories and photos.”
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