Red Tide Outbreak Confirmed Along Daytona Beach Coast

Health officials Thursday confirmed there's a red tide outbreak at Daytona Beach. The algae bloom can kill fish and cause respiratory problems in people.

Volusia County health officials got the positive results Thursday from three ocean water samples sent to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission Research Institute in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

You can't see red tide in the air, but can feel the gas that the algae bloom releases in your lungs. It'll bring on a cough or two or more severe respiratory problems in some people, but wouldn't cause a beach closure.

"It isn't really anything hazardous to your health unless you got some underlying respiratory problem, but there's definitely something going on," said Scott Petersohn, Volusia County Beach Patrol.

Some lifeguards along Daytona Beach are wearing masks to minimize the number of the microscopic algae cells they might be inhaling.

The red tide is not supposed to cause any long-lasting effects in humans. Symptoms resemble eye, nose and throat irritation that you'd experience with allergies.

The red tide currently impacting the coast is not as bad as a red tide that struck the area in the 1980s, when lifeguards said they saw a haze hanging over the beach.