Officials Issue Warning About Perils of Riptides : Beaches: The dangerous currents are an offshoot of the winter storms. They account for 90% of all aquatic rescues, according to state lifeguards.

The winter storms that pummeled Ventura County’s coastline and trashed local beaches have left behind another dangerous legacy: riptides.

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“We had a very active storm season which really chewed up the bottom of the ocean, leaving a lot of deep holes,” said Tom Snyder, a lifeguard with the state Department of Parks and Recreation at Manhattan Beach.

“When you have relatively large surf--three to five feet--you have a lot of water coming to shore. . . . That water has to go back to sea, causing rip currents.”

The currents, rips in lifeguard-speak, usually occur when objects such as piers, jetties or--now--grooves in the ocean floor interfere with the flow of water back to sea. When the receding water hits one of these objects, a rip or “river within the ocean” may form, pulling swimmers, surfers and Boogie boarders out to sea.

According to state lifeguards, rips account for 90% of all aquatic rescues.

“[Rip currents] don’t suck you under the water, but they can carry you out a couple hundred yards offshore,” lifeguard Erica Wilhelmsen said as she scanned the water at Ventura State Beach earlier this week. “If you don’t know how to swim very well, it can be a very scary situation.”

Earlier this month, lifeguards pulled five people out of the water at Ventura beaches.

One, a teen-age Boogie boarder, was rescued by lifeguard Spike Wessler at Ventura State Beach.

“I saw him trying to fight the rip and trying to swim straight in,” Wessler said. “You want to swim diagonal to shore, not straight in.”

Lifeguards like Wessler and Wilhelmsen said they have been taking the time to greet beach-goers and informally test their rip current literacy. If they have never heard of a rip, Wilhelmsen tells swimmers to watch for water that is brown, murky or choppy--telltale signs of a rip. She also warns them not to swim near piers, rocks or jetties.

If ever trapped in a rip current, Wilhelmsen said, people should swim at a 45-degree angle toward shore.

“Usually that gets you out every time,” Wilhelmsen said as she kept watch from her baby-blue guard tower.

Not everyone considers rips public enemy No. 1. Todd Barbosa, a 14-year-old Ventura resident who had biked to Ventura State Beach on a recent weekday to surf with a friend, said rips make his life a little easier.

“I like them, actually, because when you’re surfing, you don’t have to paddle as much,” Todd said, zipping up his wet suit. “They pull you right out.”

But that force is exactly what scares Ventura resident Nancy Mount, 31. Mount had just sprinted down the beach to pluck her daughter Brittany from the water.

“She’s got no fear,” Mount said as she toweled off her blond 4-year-old. “We were warned about rip currents by the lifeguard. I have to keep watch and make sure Brittany is right by the shoreline.”

With school out, lifeguards up and down the coast are bracing for the brigades of people bearing sun block, surfboards and boomboxes who will soon be storming the state’s beaches. Lifeguards said rip currents are a danger, and they don’t expect any improvement in conditions for several months.

“The [ocean] bottom is still very uneven and will remain that way through the middle of summer, when we start having the south swells emanating from Baja California,” Snyder said. “They move sand and, as the sand goes back to sea, it fills in the depressions.”