NYC to Close Beaches as Hurricane Erin Triggers Dangerous Surf

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New York City beaches will be closed to swimmers Wednesday and Thursday as an expanding Hurricane Erin is poised to bring rough surf and life-threatening currents to a large swath of the US East Coast.

City officials announced the closures as Erin continued to grow offshore Tuesday, with winds that extended 230 miles (370 kilometers) from its center as of 2 pm local time, according to an advisory from the US National Hurricane Center. The storm is expected to create dangerous conditions for days along Eastern beaches at a time when they would typically be packed with late-summer visitors.

“Keeping New Yorkers safe is our top priority,” NYC Parks Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa said in a statement. “We strongly urge all New Yorkers to heed these warnings and not risk their lives by entering the water.”

Forecasters said energy from the storm — which currently measures at a Category 2 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale — is capable of triggering rip currents this week from Miami Beach to Camden, Maine. Rip currents can carry even strong swimmers out to sea, raising the risk of drowning.

A “double red flag day” is in effect Tuesday to ban ocean swimming near North Carolina’s Outer Banks barrier islands. Local authorities have also ordered evacuations and declared a state of emergency for Kitty Hawk, Nags Head and other beach towns in anticipation of storm surge and tropical winds arriving mid-week.

Beaches in Delaware, including Rehoboth, and along the Jersey Shore have also closed to swimmers.

Further north, waves are expected to crest up to 13 feet (4 meters) on south-facing beaches in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, with rough surf for Cape Cod. Swimmers are advised to stay out of the water until the waves subside on Saturday.

“Our waters are the warmest they typically get,” said Bryce Williams, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service outside Boston. “This is a time when a lot of people are trying to get out in the water, so we’re trying to encourage people to be smart about it.”

Erin’s top winds reached 160 mph last weekend as it moved past the Caribbean, making it a scale-topping Category 5 storm and one of the earliest examples of such a powerful system to emerge in the Atlantic Ocean this year.

Forecasters said Erin is likely to fluctuate in intensity before it begins to break down.