Visitors to California's beaches are about to receive new and critical safety information to help them protect themselves and their families from dangerous ocean conditions.

A total of 1,900 educational signs, in English and Spanish, depicting the dangers of rip currents and steep beaches, will be installed at public access points along the California coast in the next few months. Many who visit the ocean are not educated and aware of the dangers along the ocean.

The signs were funded by the California State Coastal Conservancy and California Sea Grant. Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, a Sonoma County nonprofit that supports state parks; California Sea Grant, a university-based program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); and California State Parks, Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Division, worked in partnership to develop and produce bilingual steep beach safety signs.

The rip currents signs were developed by NOAA, the National Weather Service, U.S. Lifesaving Association (USLA) and National Sea Grant.

For more information, go to www.ripcurrents.noaa.gov. Statistics show that drowning is one of the leading causes of accidental death in California's state parks. However, the statistics also show that if people follow the water safety recommendations and stay in places where lifeguards are on duty, their chances of drowning drop dramatically.

Information from the USLA estimates the chances of drowning at a beach protected by lifeguards in the United States is less than one in 18 million visitors. Every year lifeguards throughout the U.S. perform more than 70,000 openwater rescues, according to USLA statistics. Despite these efforts, drowning continues to be the third leading cause of accidental death in the United States, claiming more than 4,000 lives each year.

The new signs extend a public education effort begun by California Sea Grant three years ago, which placed more than 500 rip currents warning signs in English and Spanish at beaches in San Diego County and Baja California, Mexico.

Lifeguards interested in obtaining signs for California beaches can e-mail California Sea Grant at sgabrysh@ucsd.edu.