ORANGE BEACH — Summer has arrived on the Alabama Gulf Coast, and as temperatures increase, so does the flow of beach-goers in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, and the need for safety remains of the utmost importance.

Whether you are a resident or visiting, it's always valuable to be aware of Fire and Rescue guidelines and resources that are available in case there is an emergency.

"Know before you go" is a phrase used by Orange Beach Beach Safety Chief Brett Lesinger and Gulf Shores Beach Safety Chief Joethan Phillips, which is aimed at using weather reports, surf conditions and beach flag reports to plan your beach day.

Lesinger said Orange Beach lifeguards have made 213 water rescues so far this year, surpassing the previous five years' average of 200.

"We did have a couple weekends where we were super busy, like way busier than we normally would," Lesinger said, at least partially attributing the unseasonably high number of rescues to rough surf conditions.

Phillips reported 77 water rescues in Gulf Shores so far this year.

"This is not a closed body of water, like a pool or lake," he said. "This is an open body of water, and with all the rip currents pulling even on yellow flag days, there are rip currents out there, and we want people to be aware of their own swimming abilities when they come down here."

Rip currents cause over "80% of water rescues performed by surf beach lifeguards" and contribute to over 100 deaths in the United States every year, according to statistics conducted by the United States Lifesaving Association (USLA).

According to the beach report and safety page found on the Alabama Beaches website, an easy way to spot a rip current is to "look for gaps between the waves. A small patch of calm water surrounded by waves is often a rip current." To escape a rip current, the best solution is to remain calm to preserve energy and swim parallel to the shoreline until you feel the current weaken, then swim straight to the shore.

Heat safety is another factor to think about when planning a beach day.

Avoiding going to the beach in the middle of the day and continuing to hydrate is a good way to prevent overheating, Lesinger said.

"People don't realize, you know, they'll sit down there for maybe four or five hours, all of a sudden they're sunburnt and they're very dehydrated, and they don't really realize that it's happening that quickly to them," he said.

Another safety concern, especially for big groups, is losing a child on a packed and busy beach. To a child, everything looks the same to them, Phillips said.

"Every umbrella is a blue umbrella or blue stripe umbrella. So, when they turn around, you know, there's a high chance of them just going somewhere else," he said. "Every year we have up to 100 to 250 missing people that we reunite, and it's a lot easier for us to see a picture and recognize the face and send it out to all the lifeguards and police department when we're searching."

A tip he recommends is taking a family photo documenting what everyone is wearing and looks like so that in the case a child does go missing, authorities have an accurate photo to reference.

You can set up automatic alerts by texting "ALBEACHES" to 888777 for beach conditions and warning flag updates and texting "ALERTBALDWIN" to 888777 for local area weather conditions.