The city should post signs screaming about potentially killer currents along the stretch of Far Rockaway surf where three girls were swept away, community leaders said yesterday.
“I asked the Parks Department for signs that warn people about the dangerous currents along with the [present] signs that tell you not to go in when there are no lifeguards,” said Community Board 14 district manager Jonathan Gaska.
City Councilwoman Juanita Watkins, who represents the area, echoed the need for “big signs warning of a strong undertow.”
Several red signs are posted along the pathways leading to the beach where the three girls went Monday, alerting beachgoers that lifeguards are on duty from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and that swimming is prohibited when they are not there.
Sisters Shajeda Ahmed 12, and Jubeda Ahmed, 16, and their cousin Rahela Begum, 13, waded into the water up to their knees and were swallowed by the ocean before the lifeguards came on duty.
Rahela died after being pulled out of the water by a courageous cop, and the grim search continued yesterday for her cousins.
Mayor Giuliani said “our hearts go out to the families that are involved,” but declared signs warning about treacherous conditions would not be helpful because “you can’t count on [people] paying attention.”
He said the signs now are “pretty clear” that you should not swim unless there is a lifeguard and they provide the lifeguards’ hours.
“So if we put more signs and the signs said, ‘Let me just re-emphasize that you shouldn’t swim [except] between 10 and 6 because it really, really is very, very dangerous here,’ I don’t think you prevent tragedies like this, quite honestly,” he said.
The mayor said people have to “internalize” the fact that “they shouldn’t be swimming in the ocean or an inlet of the ocean without a lifeguard. And then adults have to take responsibility for children.”
Parks Commissioner Henry Stern also pointed out that if the city puts signs warning of dangerous currents on one beach, “it could lead to a false sense of security on other beaches that don’t have the signs, yet could have strong currents under certain conditions.”
He added there has never been, with a lifeguard on duty, a drowning at the beach where the girls died.
At 3 p.m. yesterday, the Coast Guard suspended its active search for the cousins because it “can only search when there is a reasonable expectation of survival,” said spokesman Ensign Marc Sennick.
NYPD divers and Harbor Unit officers were to continue searching this morning.