Volusia Beach Safety rescues 301 people from rip currents during Memorial Day weekend

While most of the area's stormy weather dissipated by Saturday, dangerous surf conditions remained throughout the holiday weekend, resulting in 301 ocean rescues between Friday and Monday, according to Beach Safety Captain Alex Miller.

"With the bigger surf we've had this past month, that has increased the strength and the frequency of rip currents," Miller said.

On Monday, two men were rescued after being caught in a rip current in Daytona Beach, with one of them on life support Tuesday morning, according to the Daytona Beach Fire Department.

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During the prior weekend, Beach Safety staff rescued more than 100 people from rip currents.

Last week's weather contributed to higher tides than usual, which closed down beach driving Saturday.

Miller said that this year's holiday seemed "busier" than last year, and while that may have contributed to the high number of rescues, it wasn't the only reason.

"With the loss of elevation of the beach sands from the hurricanes (Ian and Nicole), we have different areas that wouldn't normally have larger rip currents," Miller explained. "But due to some of the rain runoff in some of these different areas, the (sand at the) bottom is a little bit less stable than it was last year."

Therefore, Miller said he expects this summer to be a "big rescue year."

Because of high tides (higher than usual especially this past weekend), the water "punches holes in the sandbar" and as it travels over the holes, rip currents develop.

The hazardous rip current conditions will continue throughout this week, Miller said.

"A lot of people see the flat water and assume it's safe to go in," Miller said. "But historically, after big surf, we still have dangerous rip currents even when the water flattens out."

Sheriff's office begins law enforcement on the beach

The weekend also marked the sheriff's office taking over law enforcement at the beach. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 1595 into law last week giving sheriffs' offices in Florida authority to police unincorporated county areas, which include the beaches in Volusia County.

On Tuesday afternoon, the sheriff's office was in the process of finalizing the number of tickets issued during the holiday weekend, a spokesperson said.

The office said deputies were "stopping reckless drivers and already recovered a handgun, extended magazine and ski mask on a traffic stop," by Saturday afternoon, according to a social media post.

Miller said that with the sheriff's office assuming law enforcement duties at the beaches, "we were able to dedicate more of our resources on the water."

"We had our rescue vessel, we had jet skis patrolling every day," Miller said.

Deputy Beach Safety Chief Tammy Malphurs said last week that beachgoers are encouraged to swim in front of lifeguard towers, 41 of which were in operation this weekend, according to Miller, as well as 88 Beach Safety staff working on Saturday, 76 on Sunday, and 87 on Monday.

"We did do everything we could to encourage our staff to come in for this busy weekend," Miller said.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: High tides, rip currents at Volusia beaches result in 301 rescues