After Weekend of Drownings, 3 Missing

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Divers searched off Coney Island yesterday but couldn’t find a 10-year-old girl, one of three swimmers still missing from powerful ocean currents at area beaches over the weekend.

Four other people drowned at local beaches Friday and Saturday, authorities said.

“There are strong currents in these waters,” Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Annie Berlin said. “It’s important for everybody who goes swimming out there to remember that.”

The search for the girl was suspended yesterday afternoon pending further developments, the Coast Guard said.

“The Coast Guard along with the New York City police and fire departments and local partners conducted an aggressive shoreline search and have not found the missing swimmer,” Coast Guard Cmdr. Gregory Hitchen said.

Police and Coast Guard divers jumped off search boats in the waters off the Brooklyn beach yesterday, a day after the 10-year-old girl was pulled under by currents while swimming. The girl, Akira Johnson, was swimming with her cousin Tyriek Currie, also 10. The boy was pulled from the water.

In Long Beach on Long Island on Saturday evening, a man died after he was spotted struggling about 150 yards from shore, police Lieutenant Bruce Meyer said. Lifeguards were off duty but rushed to the beach and reached the unconscious 29-year-old man within minutes. Rescuers and hospital staffers were unable to revive him, Mr.Meyer said.

“We have a problem with people coming down after hours,” the chief of lifeguards for Long Beach, Paul Gillespie, said. “They do not know the water here or they’re very weak swimmers.”

Another man drowned and a teenager disappeared Friday on Long Beach while playing football in somewhere between 3 and 5 feet of water after lifeguard hours, officials said.

A 42-year-old man died Saturday afternoon after swimming at a beach near the ocean in East Quogue in Suffolk County, Southampton Town police said.

Several other swimmers were sucked out to sea on Friday, authorities said.

The Coast Guard called off its search Saturday for one of them, a 23-year-old man swept away off Jacob Riis Park in Queens as a friend tried to rescue him. The beach is in an area known for strong undertows and rip tides, the Coast Guard said.

Another swimmer, a man in his 20s, drowned Friday afternoon at Sandy Bar Beach on Long Island’s East End, authorities said.

The rough seas were caused by a strong storm system that brought 8-foot waves to the area earlier this week, a National Weather Service meteorologist, Jim Connolly, said.


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