Erosion caused by shifts in the climate has washed away much of the shoreline at Jacob Riis Park in Rockaway Beach, making the water an unsafe place; just recently, the threatening conditions led to the disappearance of two young boys in the ocean there last week.
According to the National Park Service, the ongoing problem at the “People’s Beach” has created “extremely hazardous” swimming conditions in the same area of the beach where the two boys went missing. The safety issues at Riis Park have already forced officials to close off sections of the beachfront to swimmers, and the NPS says they will remain blocked off for the entire summer.
Rockaway’s whole shoreline was closed off on Friday when the two boys went swimming and were swept away. The boys, ages 16 and 17, jumped in the water around 6:30 p.m., 30 minutes after lifeguards clocked out along the entire shoreline, and when the high tide was around two hours away.
Experts say rapid erosion on shorelines disrupts currents, facilitating the dangerous environment the boys faced before they disappeared in the water.
“The teens tried to jump up to kind of slice the wave. The wave was extremely high, and it went on top of them and sucked them over,” said NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kay Daughtry. Divers who were searching for the boys that evening were forced to retreat from the tumultuous surf for their own safety, he reported. On Tuesday, the NYPD and Coast Guard announced the search had been called off without finding the bodies.
Last Summer, the Army Corps of Engineers spent $12 million to dump 360,000 cubic yards of sand in an effort to replenish the area, but much of it washed away in the winter and the spring. This exposed unsafe “deteriorating wooden groins, rockwork, and other structures,” the NPS wrote in a news report last month.
Hector Mosely, a spokesperson for the Army Corps, told the Gothamist its ongoing work to build new jetties and bolster the shoreline along the Rockaway beaches farther east contributed, at least partially, to the rapid disappearance of sand at Riis Beach.
John Fletemeyer, the chair of the International Drowning Prevention Alliance, told the Gothamist that dangerous waves are more common around jetties, creating the conditions for the violent rip currents.
