Virginia Saltwater Fishing

The Coast Guard urged residents and mariners to stay off the water Sunday and Monday after Hurricane Irene and to refrain from swimming at local beaches and in tidal rivers.

Tropical storm-force winds and heavy rainfall may have resulted in strong currents, marine debris and hazards to navigation.

Additionally, Coast Guard small boat station crews have returned from the inland staging areas where they deployed to during Hurricane Irene, but some are still surveying their assets. As a result, they will have reduced search and rescue capabilities until their resources are re-established.

Likewise, some Coast Guard aircraft have returned to Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., and are conducting damage assessment overflights. Their search and rescue capabilities may also be diminished.

Hurricane Irene caused considerable disruptions in Virginia. According to the National Weather Service, portions of Virginia received  as much as 16 inches of rain in some spots.

Crews at the Coast Guard Long Range Aids to Navigation stations, including the six Alaska-based stations, turned off their domestic signal across the nation at 11 a.m. Monday, February 8, 2010.

The shutdown of the signal concludes the broadcast of the U.S. domestic signal. Stations Attu and Shoal Cove, which are bound by bi-lateral agreements with Russia and Canada, will continue to broadcast their international signals until later this year. All the stations will continue to be maintained and manned as the closure of the facilities proceeds over the coming months. Decommissioning dates have yet to be set and plans for the dismantlement of the stations are in development.

Loran-C was originally developed to provide radio-navigation service for U.S. coastal waters and was later expanded to include complete coverage of the continental U.S. as well as most of Alaska. Twenty-four U.S. Loran-C stations work in partnership with Canadian and Russian

stations to provide coverage in Canadian waters and the Bering Sea. The system provided better than 0.25 nautical mile absolute accuracy for within the published areas and provided navigation, location, and timing services for both civil and military air, land and marine users. It was approved as an en route supplemental air navigation system for both Instrument Flight Rule and Visual Flight Rule operations.

The Loran-C system served the 48 continental states, their coastal areas, parts of Alaska and neighboring countries for 67 years, 8 months and 24 days.

source: USCG press release