Michael Braun, Fort Myers News-Press Published 8:00 p.m. ET Sept. 1, 2019
Kiteboarders skim the waves as Hurricane Dorian approaches the east coast of Florida. Andrew West, News-Press
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The building surf and strengthening winds were a strong attractant to a number of people, but for a variety of reasons, at Phipps Ocean Park and Beach in West Palm Beach on Sunday.
On one of the few beaches open in Palm Beach County on Sunday while Hurricane Dorian strengthened and stalled and tried to splinter the Bahamas, there was fascination in the tall waves and opportunity.
“We’ve been down here three nights,” said Jimmy LeBore, a Rhode Island native who has lived in South Florida’s Lake Worth area for two years. “It’s getting intense. There’s a strong rip especially closer to shore.”
LeBore said the conditions drew him and a gaggle of buds to the beach, one of the few still open. He had no idea what might befall West Palm Beach in the face of Dorian.
“You listen to the Weather Channel and it changes hourly,” he said. “They’re predicting. It’s like predicting the score of a football game. If I could do that I’d be a millionaire.”
A pal, Gary Ricca, a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, native here just 6 months, was entranced by the somewhat rough ocean.
“It’s exciting,” he said.
“If they let us, we’d come back tomorrow,” LeBore added. “I got a feeling it’s going to come closer than they say. We’ll get through it.”
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Ricca, although buzzed by the coming storm, wasn’t totally sold on staying.
“I’ll probably be somewhere praying the whole time,” he said.
The angry surf was no friend to Judy Lopez, whose family was trying to catch dinner.
“We usually catch 10 or so fish,” she said sitting on the sand at Phipps. “So far we just caught catfish. We throw those back.”
Lopez, who lives in West Palm Beach, said the family would likely seek out a shelter, probably the one closest to her home at Forest Hill.
“We’ve put the shutters up,” she said. “Everything is ready.”
Elien Boes, her husband and daughter were entranced enough just standing in the sand and watching the waves.
“We had to get out for a little bit,” she said, after being cooped up and anxiously watching the news.
“Yesterday we were out of the cone,” she said. “And today we woke up and we’re in the cone.”
The Lake Worth family said they’d likely go to a friend’s empty apartment in Miami to ride things out.
“I hate to be without electricity and air conditioning,” she said.
Sol Escobar and friends were kiteboarding, sometimes leaping over waves up to 20 feet or more in the air.
“Sometimes you’re up in the air and ‘WHAM!’,” he said.
Escobar said the gusty conditions aren’t optimal for kiteboarders.
“It’s better when it’s consistent,” he said.
The afternoon’s efforts were tiring in the extreme for Escobar and friends, leading him to shrug his shoulders and say he’d likely be riding out whatever Dorian throws at the area from his home in Wellington.
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