Challenging and busy year for HM Coastguard on the Yorkshire Coast
People on the Yorkshire Coast are being urged to stay safe around water and on cliffs as the HM Coastguard explains how it has been for them this year.
People on the Yorkshire Coast are being urged to stay safe around water and on cliffs.
It is as HM Coastguard have been explaining how it has been for them in the area.
Fran Wilkins, Senior Coastal Operations Officer, said:
"2020 has been a challenging year and a very busy year. We saw a lot of people come here particularly once lockdown restrictions were lifted, that the coast was certainly a place that people were drawn to for that free space and as a result we had a lot of incidents, particularly over the summer months where our teams were exceptionally busy dealing with coastal incidents.
"We were getting incidents of people cut off by the tide. Children blowing out in inflatables which is something that has decreased massively over the past few years, but that became a bit more of a popular thing this year. Lots and lots of missing children which again, is just people not really necessarily knowing the hazards that the coast can present.
"Being prepared can help to prevent being caught out by the environment; so wearing suitable footwear if you're going to go climbing down the cliffs, knowing what the tide is doing, making sure that your children know how the tide works and when to come back, and knowing who and how to call for help
"The coast and its dangers they change slightly in the winter. They become more exaggerated by the weather so when we get stormy seas and waves crashing over Marine Drive for example, as tempting as it is for people to go and get that really nice picture, it's a very dangerous place to be.
"Stay away from cliff edges when they're potentially eroding at this time of the year, lots of water coming down the cliffs, so don't stand on cliff edges for that dramatic photo because potentially you're standing on something that can fall away at any second. Know the tide times, take a phone with you and make sure the phone has battery so you can call for help if you need to and tell someone where you're going.
"We want people to enjoy the coast. We don't want to put people off from coming here but obviously Covid is an issue for everybody at the moment, and we have and we will continue to respond wherever we need to; but you can help us keep our teams are their families safe by taking those extra steps to reduce the need for us to be called out."