Memorial Day for the Books

It’s rare that all the elements come together for a perfect weekend on a holiday. This year’s Memorial Weekend did. Three perfect days in a row. The sun was out, the winds were light. It was warm but not hot. And the water ranged from all the way flat to a very slight groundswell rolling in from the storm that hit Florida. On top of all that, the water was a beautiful emerald green and the fish were biting.
Even the crowds were near perfect. There were a lot of people here, but there wasn’t so many as to cause gridlock. Traffic moved, albeit slowly, on the seawall all three days. And, typical of the early season, everyone seemed to be in a pretty good mood. Everyone just seemed to be happy to be hanging out with friends and family, enjoying the amazing weather, and doing activities that they love.
I don’t mean to imply that things were perfect from the public safety side. You don’t get several hundred thousand people in one place without some mishaps. Some of the west end beaches had some issues later in the day, which were handled admirably as usual by the Galveston Police Department. As is the procedure on holidays, we clear the east end parks at the end of the day according to state guidelines. The process was mostly handled by the Park Board Security Detail, which is run by the Galveston Police Department. Beach Patrol helped as well. It went pretty smoothly considering that several thousand people had to get all their stuff together and get their vehicles out of the park. We also had a lightning storm blast through the east side of the island at peak crowd time on the peak day. Sunday at 3pm was a tough time to clear around 10,000 from the water when their having a good time! But we got through it and everyone got to get back to the party after about half an hour. We also had a tough time keeping swimmers out of the water at the ends of the island.
There were 5 calls of a “possible drowning” that we responded to. Two were false alarms and one was in a pool and was transported by EMS in stable condition. One was of a 3 year old girl at Hershey Beach on Saturday evening. A bystander reportedly pulled her in and started CPR. When we arrived she was alert and conscious. We put her on oxygen and EMS transported her. The tragic call dropped on Saturday morning early. An elderly man was out fishing at Pirates Beach in about waist deep water. A bystander noticed him face down and two men pulled him in. Multiple responders were there quickly but unfortunately, he did not survive. There were no signs of unusual currents or drop offs.
To give a feel for how busy we were over the weekend some stats are: 48,847 preventative actions, 25 lost children reunited, 36 medical responses, and about 200 enforcement actions.
Whew!