I live near the water so I’m used to occasional foam on the beach.

The anchors at the Fox D.C. affiliate? Apparently not so much.

Over the weekend, at the height of Hurricane Irene, they kept marveling at the foam covering poor Tucker Barnes in Ocean City, Md., asking him question after question about its composition.

Barnes answered the best he could, but he clearly did not know that much more than they did. Later, a TV website asserted that the foam was “probably the remnants of raw sewage.” Which, ew, but maybe it wasn’t. (The report wasn’t all that conclusive.)

My bigger question: Why did they make him keep giving reports while foam of uncertain composition was spewing all over him? I do my best to avoid the stuff while I’m running barefoot on the sand.

You don’t have to read water quality reports to know that there are plenty of toxins in our waters under the best of circumstances, let alone raging hurricanes. (And trust me, if you have read those reports, you’ll really be squeamish about wading in during a storm, when runoff makes water quality especially dubious.)

My Wrap story on hurricane coverage, complete with video of Tucker and a streaker in Virginia Beach, is here.