Remnant of hurricane could impact holiday weekend plans

It may be a bit of a bummer this weekend for the crowd of Labor Day vacationers hitting coastal towns across Delmarva.

With rain in the forecast, those hitting the beach say they may have to rethink some plans.

Tara Finkelstein and her family are visiting Ocean City from New Jersey.

“We’re supposed to go to the water park, the beach,” says Finklestein. “I love it here. I’m excited to be here, I’m just bummed with the weather.”

The expected remnants of a system that on Thursday became Hurricane Hermine traveling northeast may mean higher surf and increased rip current activity, according to the Ocean City Beach Patrol.

Lieutenant Ward Kovacs has been with the beach patrol for 34 years.

He tells 47ABC, there will be 45 lifeguard stands on the beach this holiday weekend. That’s compared to about 90 in the middle of the summer.

“A lot of our staff is going to go away to other states like places in California, Hawaii and obviously they can’t come in just for a weekend,” explains Lieutenant Kovacs.

According to Kovacs, the most important advice for beach-goers is to know where the nearest lifeguards are. He says the stands will be about 450 yards away from each other.

“It’s just really important for people to ask the lifeguards what the conditions are and they kind of have to gauge their swimming abilities and their water abilities according to the conditions at the time,” he explains.

He says the overall goal for the beach patrol to keep people safe as they have fun.

According to Lieutenant Kovacs, the crowd in Ocean City is not expected to be as big as it was for the 4th of the July holiday. He says it will likely be similar to Memorial Day weekend.

Rehoboth Beach Patrol says they will have between 30 and 40 lifeguards on duty this weekend.

Similar to Ocean City, they say an important tip is swim near a lifeguard.