Carolina Beach Surf Report » News

A Living Nightmare – The Gulf Oil “Spill”

Mick — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:00:28 +0000

I’ve been following this oil spill, it should be called an oil gusher. Since the day it started (4/20) this thing has gotten way out of hand. As I write , thousands of gallons of raw crude oil is gushing, not spilling, into the Gulf of Mexico. If you know anything about the Gulf or the East Coast you might of heard of the loop current or the gulf stream that runs up the east coast. As i predicted days after the catastrophe that oil would make its way to the Atlantic at some point, I just did know when or how fast. But I knew it was bound to happen. Well almost one month into this disaster, as the oil still gushes out of the well head that they cant shut off, the oil is moving closer and closer to our beaches but it hasn’t left the Gulf just yet.

So far there is no end in sight sadly, and with that there is no doubt the oil will make it to the Atlantic and up to east coast to us. I don’t know how concerned you are but this is worrying the hell out of me not just for our beaches but for all of the animals, sea turtles, birds, marine life & wetlands that are going to be affected by this mess for many many years to come. Don’t forget about us as well! We are surfers, most of us live at the beach, the ocean is our home. This will change the way we do things for a very very long time. If the worst case scenario happens, even though it has for the planet, but for our coast we can only hope for the best and prepare for the worst. With that said I’ll be posting some videos below about what is going on.

If you want to understand how and why all of this happened I encourage you to watch the 60 minutes episode that was just released yesterday. After watching that without a doubt you will be very upset once you find out what how and why this happened and how negligent British Petroleum (BP) and the rig operator acted when it came down to the choice between money and oil or safety. PLEASE WATCH IT! Knowledge is a very powerful tool. The more info you know and the more people that know the truth, the stronger as a whole we become!

60 Minutes – Deepwater Horizon’s Blowout Part 1

60 Minutes – Deepwater Horizon’s Blowout Part 2

A News Clip From NBC About The Oil Reaching The Atlantic

Young Man Drowns At Fort Fisher

Mick — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:45:55 +0000

A 10-year-old boy drowned Saturday afternoon at Fort Fisher State Recreation Area, and rescue workers at other area beaches said rip currents were the cause of several other near-drownings.

Just after 4 p.m., after a two-hour search off the beach of Fort Fisher, the U.S. Coast Guard located the boy in the surf. The boy was not conscious. He was transported to New Hanover Regional Medical Center, where a doctor pronounced him dead, said Deputy Charles Smith of the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office.

Lifeguards at Fort Fisher reported about 2 p.m. that three swimmers were in distress. The lifeguards rescued two adults who were swimming with the boy, but the boy was missing in the water, Smith said.

The search included officials with the Coast Guard, the sheriff’s office and a number of local police and rescue units. The Wilmington Police Department’s SABLE helicopter flew overhead and there were at least three search boats in the waters.

Coast Guard members located the boy’s body from a helicopter and sent a diver into the water to retrieve him. After bringing the boy to shore, rescue workers tried to revive him while family members sat in a circle on the beach, just in front of the rescue vehicle, in prayer.

Hundreds of bystanders at the state park huddled while they watched the rescue. Officials made sure people didn’t enter the water while the search was under way.

Smith said the boy’s parents were taken to the hospital. Officials were withholding the boy’s name pending notification of other family members.

Near-drownings and ocean rescues were reported at other New Hanover County beaches.

Cpl. Simon Sanders, of Carolina Beach Ocean Rescue, said one woman was transported to the hospital at about 5 p.m. after she was rescued from a rip current near the Oystershell Lane beach access. He said the woman had a pulse, but he did not have information about her condition.

US Coast Guard Jayhawk Lowers A Rescue Swimmer To The Missing Young Man That Was Seen In The Surf Zone Photo: Star News

He said lifeguards on duty were flying red flags to signal rip current danger and advise swimmers to use caution.

Kure Beach Ocean Rescue director Tom Cannon said lifeguards had rescued a handful of swimmers caught in rip currents Saturday, but he said none of the rescued individuals had serious injuries.

At the beginning of the tourist season, budget cuts had forced Fort Fisher to eliminate its lifeguards.

But in one rough weekend, Kure Beach lifeguards repeatedly responded to emergencies at Fort Fisher, Some eventually remained stationed at Fort Fisher.

But that left Kure Beach understaffed, so town officials and concerned residents lobbied state legislators to put lifeguards back on Fort Fisher, and on June 6, the lifeguards returned.

Earlier this season, an Ohio woman died after being caught in a rip current at Kure Beach.

This is just a sad reminder of how powerful the ocean is always know before you go, For Tips & Info about rips please click here.

Higher High Tides Baffle Experts

Mick — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:28:49 +0000

Weather experts are contemplating a new mystery of the deep blue sea: why it’s been deeper than usual at high tide all along the East Coast for the past several weeks. Since June, tides have been running from 6 inches to 2 feet above what would normally be expected, even considering seasonal and lunar fluctuations. While local tidal changes are not uncommon, researchers for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aren’t sure they have ever recorded an event like this one, which is showing up all the way from Maine to Florida. In North Carolina, tides have been about a foot above normal

Canal Drive on the north end floods during astronomical high tides several times a year

predictions. “Right now we’re trying to get a better understanding of what’s the cause,” said Mike Szabados, director of NOAA’s tide and current program in Silver Spring, Md.

Global warming isn’t to blame, scientists say, as the rise was too sudden. Possibly, Szabados said, the explanation lies in something called the North Atlantic oscillation, a disturbance in the atmospheric pressure in the area of the North Atlantic Ocean between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High.

A change in the atmospheric pressure can change wind velocities and directions, which can affect ocean circulation, Szabados said.

NOAA monitors sea level at more than 200 stations along U.S. coastlines. Remote sensors mounted on piers and other structures measure water depth acoustically, sending a signal to the bottom and calculating the time it takes to bounce back. NOAA gets the readings in real time.

Using less scientific methods, boat captains may have noticed they’re coming in to dock higher than usual or that it’s been easier to navigate shallows behind barrier islands.

The higher tides have also flooded the nests of shore birds and sea turtles close to the water line. The higher water brings an increased risk of rip tides. And if a tropical storm or hurricane strikes before the phenomenon subsides, damage near the shore could be magnified.

North Carolina has more than 300 miles of ocean shoreline, with more than 250,000 insured properties in 18 coastal counties.

The surge peaked in the third week of June, at the same time the coast was experiencing a high spring tide, and ocean water pushed into places it isn’t usually seen in the absence of a tropical storm. It washed over a bulkhead at the end of Harbor Island, something Joe Abbate, a wildlife biologist who runs Wrightsville Beach Scenic Tours and Taxi Service, had never seen before.

“It was weird,” said Abbate, who goes by Cap’n Joe.

One evening, he said, he took a group out for a nature tour on his beach catamaran, the Shamrock, and was surprised to see the water over the top of marsh grasses.

It had swept out a bunch of trash, he said, and lifted a pair of baby clapper rails with their mother on a mat of dead spartina grass.

“Rails are not very good fliers,” Abbate said. “They’re kind of limited in what they can do.”

Not nice for turtle nests

Some of the thousands of volunteers who patrol North Carolina beaches for sea turtle nests during the summer have noticed the higher tides because they’ve had to relocate nests higher on the beach to keep the eggs from being repeatedly submerged.

In a normal year, Nancy Busovne, coordinator for the Pleasure Island Sea Turtle Project, said she and her volunteers would have to relocate about half the turtle nests they find to save the eggs. This year, they’ve moved five of the seven nests laid so far.

And during that week in June when the surge combined with a high spring tide, Busovne said, friends who live on the canal side of the island had several inches of water in their house when the tide came in.

“That’s very unusual,” Busovne said.

Szabados said that while the surge has diminished, it hasn’t disappeared, and researchers don’t know when it will.