(AP) — Although the storm was hundreds of miles offshore, Hurricane Ernesto was still being felt along much of the U.S. East Coast Saturday, with dangerous surf rip currents forcing public beaches to close on one of the last busy weekends of the summer season.
The storm’s high surf and swell also contributed to coastal damage. Among other things, an uninhabited beach house collapsed into the water off the narrow barrier islands of North Carolina.
Hurricane specialist Philippe Papin of the National Hurricane Center said Ernesto, which made landfall on the small British Atlantic territory of Bermuda early Saturday, was a “fairly large” hurricane with “major sea and wave impacts” that affected the Atlantic coast of central Florida as far north as Long Island in New York state.
“High seas and significant rip currents are expected across the entire East Coast region of the United States,” Papin said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes rip currents as “strong, narrow channels of fast-moving water” that move at speeds of up to 8 feet per second.
In New York City, authorities closed oceanfront beaches in Brooklyn and Queens to swimming and wading on Saturday and Sunday. The National Weather Service had predicted dangerous surf hazards with possible waves of up to 1.8 meters. However, lifeguards were still on site, patrolling the beaches and urging people not to go into the water.
“New Yorkers should know that the ocean is mightier than them, especially this weekend,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. “Don’t risk your life or the lives of emergency responders by swimming while our beaches are closed.”
The National Weather Service also warned of possible rip currents at popular beaches in Delaware and New Jersey, as well as as far north as Massachusetts, and urged swimmers to exercise “extreme caution” over the weekend.
In North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the National Park Service confirmed the house collapse Friday evening in Rodanthe, one of several communities on Hatteras Island. No injuries were reported, the park service reported.
A statement from the park administration said other homes in and near Rodanthe also appeared to have been damaged.
It was the seventh such house collapse in the last four years on Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a 110-kilometer-long stretch of coast between Bodie Island and Ocracoke Island that is managed by the federal government. The sixth house collapsed in June.
The low-lying barrier islands are increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and flooding from Pamlico Sound and the sea as the planet warms. Rising sea levels are undermining efforts to keep the buildings in place.
The park service urged visitors to avoid Rodanthe beaches and surf this weekend, adding that hazardous trash could be on the beach and in the water for several miles. A portion of the national coastal area north of Rodanthe has also been closed to the public. Trash removal is not expected to begin until early next week, when elevated sea levels subside, the park service said.
The National Weather Service issued flood and high-swell warnings for the Outer Banks through Monday morning. It also warned over the weekend of rip currents, large waves or both that could reach the beaches of Virginia and Maryland to the north and the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and much of Florida to the south.
In Bermuda, tens of thousands of electricity customers were without power when the Category 1 storm hit with heavy rainfall expected to trigger dangerous flash flooding.
