July in Nassau County is now all about rip current awareness

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman took to the sand in Lido Beach Wednesday to announce the month of July now has a new name — Rip Current Awareness Month.

Blakeman was joined by Nassau County Legislator, Presiding Officer Rich Nicolello, Commissioner of Parks, Recreation and Museums Darcy Belyea and Josephine De Moura, a mother who lost her daughter to a rip current in 2019.

“Here’s a terrible statistic,” Blakeman said. There are over 60 people that have died in the United States just this year from rip currents. So, we have to know how to negotiate our way out of rip currents. That’s what we’re doing here today.”

Blakeman spoke about the dangers of the ocean and how to be safe and signed an executive order declaring the month. De Moura then spoke about her daughter, Alexandria, who drowned in a rip current four years ago.

“Her natural instinct was to is to fight against the current and she tired out not knowing what to do and drowned,” she said of her daughter. “If I can save one family from the devastation that my family and I are going through, it is my mission. Knowledge is power.”

Blakeman and De Moura then debuted a new rip current safety sign at the entrance ramp to the sand at Nickerson Beach. It is one of eight new signs in Lido Beach trying to educate beachgoers on how to identify a rip current, how to stay safe and how to respond and react if caught in one.