Ocean claims lives

A body was recovered in the waters off Riis Park on Monday, July 28, and a day later it was identifed as a Brooklyn father. It followed a weekend in which seven people were presumed drowned on city and Long Island beaches.
Devon Flanders, 22, of Brooklyn, who was swimming at 9:30 p.m. — long after lifeguards go off duty at 6 p.m., according to Brian Feeney, spokesperson for the National Park Service — went missing on Friday, July 25. It has been the only drowning at Riis Park this year, noted Feeney.
And on Sunday, July 27, the Coast Guard halted their search for Akira Johnson, 10, who attended P.S. 188 in Bayside. She went missing in the waves off Coney Island.
The number of lifeguards this year is at 1,140 – “more than ever before,” said a spokesperson for the Parks Department, who told The Courier that at Coney Island, there were three llifeguards in the water and one on a jetty in an attempt to save the victim.
Reports have tied the trouble in the waters to rip currents.
On Long Island, two drowned and one vanished off Long Beach; another man drowned in the Hamptons and one more in East Quogue.