[secstate]

Years ago there was a hurricane that made it up the New England coast. I remember a story of a father and daughter in Acadia National Park who had wandered out onto some exposed rocks (with about 40 other people) to watch these huge waves crash just below them. Eventually one wave was larger than the others and it knocked all 40 people onto their asses, while dragging the father and daughter (who were right on the edge) into the ocean. The father drowned.

All I could think was how colossally dumb you had to be to assume the waves just going to sit there crashing below you. It was clearly a huge storm surge. And then how horribly tragic and preventable the outcome was. Some people, man.

EDIT: Misremembered it. Three people were swept out, and it was the 7-year-old daughter who died. God damn, how awful.

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2009/08/23/news/three-swept-...

[wahern]

Here on the US West Coast so-called sneaker waves kill a handful of people every year, sometimes sweeping (and killing) entire families into the ocean who were strolling along a beach with unthreatening surf. I was oblivious to this until the 3rd or so incident that caught my attention, then on a hunch poked around with Google search enough to realize (after over 15 years living in the Bay Area) it's actually a regular occurrence. It happens on some stretches more than others, and its more likely in the winter, but it's not confined to "dangerous" beaches and can happen at any time. For some reason it hasn't captured the public's (or media's) attention to become a "thing"--a known hazard that people keep in mind. Every incident tends to be reported in isolation, notwithstanding any blurbs about recent incidents if they happened to occur close enough in time and locality.

It's natural to qualify and rate tragic events by degree of perceived "innocence". Families swept off quiet beaches to their doom without warning is about as innocently tragic as you can get. That said, some incidents are arguably less innocent then others, such as fishermen venturing onto narrower stretches of beach at low tide during winter, when Pacific surf is stronger and more varied. But even then usually it seems people aren't doing anything that onlookers would consider inviting tragedy, and quite often it happens on well trafficked beaches and during times of the year that people wouldn't consider risky.

Fortunately I grew up along the Gulf Coast so Pacific surf has always felt ominous to me. OTOH, I have a higher risk tolerance than many others, especially of younger generations, so maybe it's a wash for me.

[FireBeyond]

I had one in Oregon with my then 8 or 9 year old step daughter. We were on rocks WELL above the wave line (like 6+ feet, dry rock leading the surf maybe 20 feet away). And (this is where I screwed up) we were about 50-100 yards out on this outcrop (so rapid scramble not possible).

Then, sneaker wave. I basically had her jump up "into my arms" so to speak, wrap arms around my neck, legs around my waist, while I situated myself as best I could, and grabbed onto rock with both hands. The water came up to my waist.

That was a genuinely terrifying experience.