Yes however they were also off the second sand bar….terrible he perished but people don’t listen to warnings!!! I live about 6 miles from there! The lifeguards past 2.5 weeks have been working their butts off!!! Then your boob Jim Cantore tweeting “warnings needed” flipping jackass … I think there was a comedian once said “ can’t fix stupid!
Late on this and slightly off-topic but I read today that like 8 have drowned in the Gulf this, year starting with Mallet. As a native Floridian, I was always baffled at the “tourists” in the water with red flags or venturing way out even under yellow flags. I’m sitting there thinking I’ve grown up swimming year round my whole life and we’re sitting this one out WTF are you in the water. The older I’ve gotten the more conscious I’ve gotten of it and I don’t drift out more than about waist deep regardless of the current situation. I got caught in one about 7 years back in Pensacola, immediately turned and swam with the shore and still could tell I was being pulled further out and got fairly nervous. I finally hit a spot where it was almost non-existent and immediately sensed the struggle was over; made my way to shore to find out I was damn near 200 yards down from where my wife was sitting. My mentality on venturing out changed immediately that day.Yes however they were also off the second sand bar….terrible he perished but people don’t listen to warnings!!! I live about 6 miles from there! The lifeguards past 2.5 weeks have been working their butts off!!! Then your boob Jim Cantore tweeting “warnings needed” flipping jackass … I think there was a comedian once said “ can’t fix stupid!
and FWIW, I’ve worked Beach service in three different cities in gulf coast over the years!
Boy what blows my mind and pisses me off the most and I saw it again 15 minutes ago is when a two or three year old child with no life vest on knee deep in the surf even under a yellow flag and there’s not an adult within 15 or 20 feet and I’ve even saw parents turn their back on the children to go back to their chairs assuming that someone else will be watching them! I usually stop walking as a passive overseer just to make sure nothing happens!
Rip currents are nothing to play around with and there are many sources of information people can read about them people assume because the wave breakers in the gulf coast aren’t the same size as the Atlantic that the rip currents are different but it’s actually opposite. The rip currents are worse than Gulf Coast than they are in the Atlantic.! so I encourage everyone that reads this when you go on vacation to the beach respect the flags learn how riptides function and if you get caught in one, how to get out of it by letting it take you out, swim parallel to the beach to come back in, relax, don’t panic!
It's definitely scary, I've done that, but thankfully wasn't far out, just had to go sideways and was way down from our spot. My wife and kids were on floats a few years ago at Cape San Blas, and got pulled out. They got in and we were leaving, and a little girl started screaming. I turned as her mom washed up, but thank God there was a nurse there, and she revived her. I helped hold her, and pat her back getting water out until the ambulance arrived. My kids seeing that really changed how they are in the water, me too. It was awful, especially her daughter crying "please mommy don't die", had me in tears.
young man