Turn On It, Tune Out, Drop In

S WIND 35 TO 45 KT.
BECOMING SW 25 TO 30 KT WITH GUSTS TO 35 KT IN THE AFTERNOON.
COMBINED SEAS 24 FT DOMINANT PERIOD 8 SECONDS.
SUBSIDING TO 22 FT DOMINANT PERIOD 8 SECONDS IN THE AFTERNOON.
TONIGHT SW WIND 10 TO 15 KT...RISING TO 15 TO 20 KT AFTER MIDNIGHT.
WIND WAVES 2 FT...BUILDING TO 4 FT AFTER MIDNIGHT.
W SWELL 19 FT AT 10 SECONDS...SUBSIDING TO 15 FT AT 10 SECONDS AFTER MIDNIGHT.

Per the author of the pics...an inexperienced surfer went into shock and got washed into the first cove at this central coast break yesterday about 1:30 pm. In the pic above, the surfer and rescue swimmer are getting dropped off after after a nice (free) ride in the rescue basket. Below, are the Coast Guard boats waiting offshore during the rescue. Conditions clearly were not all time...but it looks pretty surfable in the top pic. And definitely surfable considering that conditions in November have been largely out of control.

Here's a sad story I missed from during the heavy storms early in the month (11/7)...it amazes me how little attention people pay to the dangers on the beach. Just for perspective...the combined seas that day were 21 feet with a 16 second period, the beach they were walking on is typically steep with heavy shorebreak and strong sideshore currents.

The pic isn't of the beach in question...but it is a close approximation of the conditions during a smaller swell. I would suppose the shorebreak on the day these ladies were on their walk was probably 3 to 4 times as big. Here's the article:

A beach outing turned tragic Tuesday afternoon when two women walking along the shore in Gleneden Beach were apparently swept out to sea by a large wave. The body of one of the women was discovered the next morning, while the other is still missing.

The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office received a missing persons report at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. A deputy responded to a vacation rental home on Glenn Avenue in Gleneden Beach, where he learned that Elma Benefiel, 78, of Beaverton and her daughter-in-law, Jan Benefiel, 61, of Idaho Falls, Idaho had gone for a walk in the area around 1 p.m. and had not returned. Family members had gone looking for the women, and when they couldn't find them, they tried calling Elma Benefiel's cell phone, but the call went right to voice mail. At that point, family members notified law enforcement.

The two women had reportedly been seen around 2 p.m. by personnel from the Depoe Bay Fire Department, who were helping to coordinate the efforts underway in response to a home that was in danger of collapsing into the ocean due to erosion of the bluff. And a local resident also reported seeing the women walking on the beach at about 4 p.m.

Sheriff's Deputy Bruce McGuire, coordinator of Lincoln County Search & Rescue, said he activated the search team shortly after receiving the report of the two missing women. "We didn't know that they'd actually made it down to the beach," he said. "We started off in the neighborhood, letting the dogs run the neighborhood where they would possibly walk. The dogs actually led our personnel toward the beach."

That was about 10 p.m., McGuire said, "but because of the storm, going down on the beach would have been hazardous, so all the search was done from the bank and from the Coast Guard helo that went through and spotlighted that area."

Despite an intensive search effort that night, no sign of the missing women had been found by midnight, when the search was called off due to weather and lighting conditions.

However, at around 7 a.m. on Wednesday, a person living in a beachfront home near Salishan Drive saw a body on the beach, about a mile north of where the two women had disappeared. The sheriff's office, Oregon State Police and Coast Guard were dispatched to the scene and identified the body as that of Elma Benefiel. Depoe Bay Fire personnel responded and assisted in removing the body from the beach, and next of kin were notified.

McGuire said search teams scoured the beaches all day on Wednesday, but there was no sign of Jan Benefiel. A limited search of the area Thursday morning again turned up nothing. "At this point, we're kind of at the mercy of the ocean to do what it's going to do," he said. "Our search is going to pretty much be just a brief check of the area."

McGuire said it is unknown exactly how this tragedy occurred. "I think it was just an unfortunate set of circumstances, and it ended up taking their lives."

Watching coastal storms is an activity many people enjoy, but McGuire said, "We need to respect the ocean and make sure that we're keeping a good distance away from it, and keeping away from the edges of the cliffs because they're eroding away when the surf is up on them.

"Enjoy the ocean from a distance if you can," advised McGuire, "especially when it's in storm surge."

Jim Kusz, safety coordinator for North Lincoln Fire & Rescue, said he has seen storm surge come up onto the beach an extra 50 yards in a matter of seconds. He added that even though the wind and rain are over for the time being, the threat from storm surge still exists. "There are 50-foot swells off Nelscott," he said on Wednesday. "That's a lot of water being displaced when it comes ashore. When you have wind and water working together like that, it makes very unpredictable patterns."