Three Alabama men drown on Florida beach after being caught in rip current

Three men drowned while swimming at a Florida beach on Friday after being caught in a rip current, adding to a deadly week of swimming incidents along the East Coast and in the South.

The Bay County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday identified the three men as Harold Denzel Hunter, 24, Jemonda Ray, 25, and Marius Richardson, 24, of Birmingham, Alabama.

The three men arrived with friends in Bay County Friday evening and “checked into their rental and ran outside to jump in the water,” Sheriff Tommy Ford said. The men were caught in a rip current around 8 p.m.

Ford said his office received a call reporting three swimmers in distress Friday evening and his office responded with the U.S. Coast Guard, Bay County Emergency Services and other agencies to locate them.

First responders attempted their search and rescue for more than two hours, Ford said. Once removed from the Gulf of Mexico, the men received medical treatment. On Saturday, Ford announced that all three men had died at local hospitals.

“My heart is very heavy this morning following the loss of three young visitors to our community,” Ford said in a statement. “I saw so many people, including visitors from our community, gathering on the beach last night desperately searching for them.”

After the individuals were located, the U.S. Coast Guard’s Panama City Station urged residents and visitors to use caution in Gulf waters because “rip currents appear unexpectedly and can occur even on the most pleasant days.

As of Saturday morning, the National Weather Service’s rip current risk forecast for Florida’s Gulf beaches remained high, citing “potentially life-threatening rip currents” and 2-foot waves that are “dangerous for all levels of swimmers “.

The incident comes at a time of heightened awareness of beach safety. A Pennsylvania couple drowned Thursday at Stuart Beach on Florida’s Hutchinson Island after being caught in a rip current, and two teenagers disappeared Friday at Jacob Riis Park in Queens, New York, after that a big wave caught them.

The U.S. Coast Guard announced Saturday that it had suspended search operations for the missing teens after searching more than 600 square miles off the coast of New Jersey and New York.

“The decision to suspend a search is always difficult and weighs heavily on everyone involved,” said Jonathan Andrechik, commander of Coast Guard Sector New York. “Our teams, as well as our partner agencies, conducted an exhaustive search.”

As of June 9, the National Weather Service has counted at least 11 deaths from rip currents.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com