False Alarms: Several Communities Respond To Water Emergencies Sunday

TIVERTON, RI — Middletown, Tiverton, and Westport, Mass., marine units, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, responded to South Beach on Sunday afternoon. Witnesses reported swimmers caught in a rip tide. However, the Coast Guard said the reports turned out to be erroneous. Some people were out on paddle boards, but they were never in distress and were not being swept away. No one was injured, the Coast Guard said.

Then later Sunday night, the Newport fire department's marine task force responded for a woman in distress.

The call came around 11 p.m. Sunday. She was reportedly on a whaler north of the Newport Pell Bridge. The Portsmouth marine boat scanned the area and did not find any vessels matching the description of a 25 foot whaler. North Kingstown reported their marine unit located a vessel and interviewed the man and woman on board. They reported there were no problems. At 11:38 p.m. the Coast Guard at cancelled the search pending further information.