Hurricane Erin: Mass. beaches closed as powerful storm brings huge waves, treacherous rip currents

Well, the impact of Hurricane Aaron seen up and down the East Coast now live. Look at Virginia Beach in Virginia. We can see the white caps kicked up by the storm and the surface starting to get kind of rough out there. Aaron is not on track to make any landfall in the United States, but those big waves are creating some dangerous conditions here in Massachusetts, just as many are wrapping up their summer vacations to boot. Boston 25 News reporter Alyssa Hazar is live at Horseneck Beach this morning in Westport. Melissa, the waves are pretty big at this hour. Yeah, Gene, that's right. We are feeling some of the impacts of Aaron and many beaches here in Westport. They are closed. That's because of the dangerous conditions we're seeing like high surf and rip currents. And these waves this morning, they are pretty aggressive and we can only expect them to get higher as the day goes on. Now, these beaches are closed because rip currents along the coast have the potential to pull swimmers and surfers away from shore and into deep water. If you drive down to Horseneck Beach, if you try to go there today, you'll see a big sign saying due to the high surf, the beach is closed. You can't even drive through the parking lot. And in Massachusetts, many DCR beaches are in high risk areas and high surf advisories are in effect along parts of the southern coast. Those waves out there are super powerful, but also what they're doing right now is they're paving the path for rip currents. We're not ripping a ton. There are rip currents out there right now, but it's more the power of the waves. But as these waves are crashing on shore, they're creating those narrow channels. That's going to be more of what we're going to start to see in the next coming days and even after the storm has passed us, these really nasty rip currents. So if you decide to braid the storm and say, hey, let me take a walk on the beach, well, double red flags on the beach. If you see that, that means no swimming allowed. So just stay aware. Also, if your family is headed to Nantucket, they're also seeing very high surf. So stay out of the water this weekend for any vacations or if you plan to head to any beaches. Reporting live from Westport this morning, Alyssa Azar for your local station, Boston 25 News.