As a lifelong surfer, Josh Wagner always appreciated the swells from distant hurricanes off Florida’s coast that can bring in clean, beautiful, rolling waves.
As a beachfront homeowner on the state’s Atlantic coast – who might have lost his home south of Daytona Beach without hopping on a tractor in the middle of the night during Hurricane Nicole last fall – he now fears the erosion and destruction a hurricane can bring.
Hurricane Lee could be the worst of both, Wagner told USA TODAY. Its waves are forecast to be choppy, lousy for surfing and come with a high risk of rip currents. Any big, rough waves could rip away the little bit of sand that returned to the beaches near Ponce Inlet, Florida, since Nicole.
Similar fears will ripple northward along the entire Atlantic coast this week. Lee is forecast to move northward parallel to shore a few hundred miles to the east, bringing huge waves and hazardous surf from Florida to Maine.
The hurricane regained some of its strength over the weekend – to 120-mph winds on Monday – and its hurricane force winds widened considerably, now up to 75 miles from the center.
While the significant winds are likely to stay offshore for most of the U.S. coast, rip currents and dangerous surf are expected, according to the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service offices along the coast. Bigger waves and rip currents already have begun to reach East Coast beaches, the weather service said Monday, and that's only expected to increase.
“It’s going to produce a tremendous amount of energy in the ocean, in the form of traditional ocean waves,” Jamie Rhome, the hurricane center's deputy director, told USA TODAY. “When that energy strikes the coast, it produces this huge rip current risk.”
It's too soon to know what impacts Lee might have in the Northeastern U.S. and Canada's Atlantic Coast, the hurricane center said Monday, especially since the hurricane is expected to slow down considerably.
Rip currents are particularly worrisome for weather officials because 2023 has already been a deadly year: At least 75 deaths thought to be attributed to rip currents and hazardous surf conditions, the third highest year so far since recordkeeping started in 2002.
A report published by the American Meteorological Society in August concluded the percentage of direct fatalities attributed to tropical cyclone-related rip currents has doubled. The authors found:
“The reason rip currents are so deadly is because all the other hazards in a hurricane have a visual cue,” Rhome said. “Even if you don’t believe the forecasters, you’ll believe your own eyes.
"The air surrounding a hurricane sinks, and that sinking air creates cloud-free conditions and warm days,” he said. “That’s near perfect beach weather. People flock to the beach and there’s no visual clue that anything is wrong. There’s nothing to see that may tell you you need to be cautious."
Wagner said rip currents seem to be more prevalent in the soft sand offshore since the hurricanes. He advises people to go into the water near lifeguards.
“People think this beautiful beach is safe, and it’s not,” Wagner said. “People don’t respect Mother Nature. You’re in the ocean, you’re not in a pool.”
"These rip currents grab and your first primal reaction to that is to swim back to shore. That’s hard-wired to your brain,” Rhome said. “Unfortunately the rip current is harder than people can swim. Most people can swim and swim and swim and can't overpower the rip current.
"Your only option is to swim parallel to the shore and try to get out of it,” he said. The other option is to relax and float until you're out of the current.
It’s not just this storm that worries Wagner. It’s the other storm the hurricane center is watching off the west coast of Africa, which already has surf forecasts calling for 20-foot swells in about two weeks.
“If we get hit by another storm, we’ve got no defense,” said Wagner, an attorney and former county councilman. Communities along the beach between Daytona Beach and Ponce Inlet were hit hard by Hurricane Ian and then by Hurricane Nicole.
Wagner’s family lost their backyard and a sea wall, which they've since been able to replace. Because the sand loss revealed his property had a coquina rock revetment he was able to get a state permit to add more rock to the wall.
They have not been able to replace the 11-foot elevation of sand and dune behind their home they lost during the two hurricanes. Others along the stretch of beach haven't been able to replace sea walls or add rock and some lost homes.
“Up until November I used to look at storms and get excited … for people like me that experienced this for the first time ever, it really changes you.”
His entire beachfront community is at risk if they get a slow-moving storm or a couple of storms, he said. "This storm could be really, really catastrophic."
Whatever storm hits, we're going to be punched "like Mike Tyson fighting Evander Holyfield," he said.
Contributing: Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, contributed to this report.
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