Dangerous rip currents this year

PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. - The gulf may be calm this week, but that's hardly been the case this year. Santa Rosa Island Authority Public Safety Director, Bob West told FOX10 News, "Rip currents are clearly the big killer. From March 1st until May 21st, we had 10 days of green, the rest surf, and with surf comes rip currents."

Lifeguards say that's why 10 people have drowned at other local beaches already this year and more than 250 people have been rescued from Pensacola Beach. Lifeguard Mike Valentine has pulled out several of them. "They're usually panicking, my job to calm them down, pull them to sandbar, educate them on what just happened," he said.

Lifeguards say the key is to educate folks before they go in the water. West said, "Once the current starts to pull you out, forget it you're not going back to the beach; scream, wave your arms, get help coming to you, turn around face the gulf and simply rest, tread water. If you can swim sideways the sandbar will push you back in."

You can usually see a rip current before you even go into the water, by the way the waves come on to shore.

"When you walk up to the beach, if the shoreline recedes back at you, don't go in, you only go in where sandbars stick out," said West.

To see a diagram of the formation of rip currents check out http://www.ripcurrents.noaa.gov/.