Summer Storm Warning!

(Note: L.A. Times, July 5, 2010, LATEXTRA section, featuring a great photo of a wave crashing at the Wedge in Newport Beach on Sunday, July 4th, 2010, revealing the truth of the New Zealand origin storm surf hitting our So. Calif. beaches since July 4th! x-ref: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-waves-20100705,0,4865723.story


Cowabunga, dude!

H O L Y C O W !

Was that SOME SURF or WHAT !?...

The powers that be and prognosticators hit this one ON THE NOSE! This was a HUGE and POWERFUL storm from New Zealand which has, indeed, been crashing on our So. California south facing beaches since Sunday, July 4th! We are hoping to upload more photos, but we've got some photos taken by our "County Recurrent" Photography Unit... yesterday around 11 a.m. at Santa Monica South near Towers #26 - 28. These photos show our LACo beach guards hard at work making Preventions, setting up flags and signs, and even sweeping the ramp clear of sand so that no one slips while charging down the ramp on a rescue or prevent or the like.

We would especially like to add more photos of this storm so please send them on. You know that "County Recurrent" adamantly provides attribution and credit to the photographer. We insist upon it. You provide us a photo, YOU get the credit! Deal with it!

In any event, here goes. Sunday, July 5, 2010. Santa Monica South. 1100 hrs approximately:


SMS Tower #26, below


"Anatomy of a Prevent". This is HOW IT IS DONE! Rookies: Pay Attention! Watch how LACo OL Bill White descends the ramp at T-26, keeps his rescue can high for visibility and to alert the T-24 guard and T-28 guards, hoofs it to the location of the prevents and whistles the swimmers to get their attention. Four Preventions! Count em! With the depth of the inshore holes and the mean lateral current literally hoovering into the Rip at T-26, count these as FOUR lives saved! White was all over this like peanut butter on Wonder Bread!










Might as well add TWO More Prevents to Bill's tally because this surfer was attempting to surf along with his young son, in background in ankle deep water. Too Big and Too Rough for either of them.


Two shots below of the Rip at T-26 which is fed by the lateral current running along from Towers 28 and 27 leading any swimmers in those spots right into this Rip !



T-28 is in good hands below, with Chris Newman, on duty




As predicted, the lulls would last a few minutes between sets but when the sets of the storm surf rolled in the faces were 8 - 12 feet plus. I know because I had to haul a.. out through a four wave set with each succeeding wave bigger than the one before and breaking further out. The fourth wave had a wave face height of over 12 feet and this OL is glad, in fact, real glad that particular set had only 4 waves because the wave face height of that fourth wave was, in the words of ESPN's Stuart Scott,
R I D I C U L O U S !










Yep!... that's one of LACo's Baywatch Rescue Boats heading west toward the Santa Monica Pier in the next two photos, below



*** *** ***

That's all we've got! Please send us some of your Surf Photos from this current storm so we can share them with our tribe of ocean warriors.


Until next time.....


"County Recurrent" News
http://CountyRecurrent.blogspot.com

Service • Training • Commitment

*** Keeping the County Recurrent "in the loop"..... whether he/she likes it or NOT ! ***

DISCLAIMER: County Recurrent is not affiliated with nor sponsored by LACOLA or LACoFD.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****