Academy

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The group picked their way gingerly across the higher rocks, which were only covered in white, foamy water intermittently. One person, older and moving confidently up and down the rocks, leapt from a higher rock, tucking his rescue tube firmly against his body in midflight, and landed smoothly on top of one of the larger waves. He took a couple of strokes, rolled to the side, and smoothly slid swim fins on. Swimming back to the rocks at an angle against the rip current, he motioned for the first of the lifeguard candidates to follow, as he rose and fell with the swell.

The first brave soul moved towards the rock the instructor had jumped from. Holding her rescue tube and excess strap in the hand that was opposite from the direction the waves came from she ensured the waves wouldn’t smack the tube into her and cause her to slide across the barnacle covered rocks. Keeping her center of gravity low, but her butt off the rocks, she kept her balance while letting the energy of the smaller waves pass beneath her. She moved lower quickly before a larger wave could knock her off her feet. You could see her force herself to focus and tune out the voice telling her all the ways this could go bad. A wave approached. She knew at this point she had no choice. Once you’re low enough to jump, a decent sized wave will scrape you across the rocks if you freeze. She didn’t. She jumped a little high and landed too close to the jump point. She didn’t get the tube flat against her body, causing her hands to sink too low on impact. But her head was just right- tilted back with her face forward.  She timed the jump a little early and landed in the whitewater. But overall, it was a pretty good first jump. And practicing in decent sized surf, although it looks scary, has a much greater margin of error.

Each year, the Galveston Island Beach Patrol trains Lifeguard Candidates, or “Rookies”, in a rigorous 100 hour Lifeguard Training Academy. The Academy includes United States Lifesaving Association Open Water accreditation, Red Cross Emergency Responder certification, tourist ambassador training, leadership, resilience, and intercultural competency. Lifesaving skills open water swimming techniques are first learned in a pool environment and perfected in the open water of the Gulf of Mexico.

Lifeguard candidates will be paid a training wage for the time they spend on the training course. Upon successful completion of the Lifeguard Academy, candidates will be promoted to Lifeguard 1 status and will be eligible to work for Galveston Island Beach Patrol at up to $20 per hour. More importantly they’ll return home each day knowing they prevented accidents and/or saved a life.

Tomorrow (Saturday) at 9am we’ll be holding lifeguard tryouts at the UTMB Fieldhouse. If you or someone you know is interested in joining the team and family, please check our website for details and show up at 9. We need you!

Risk

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Years back I climbed up the pyramids in Tical, Guatemala. It was really steep, and the steps were not designed for big American feet. I reached the top and looked out from a view above the rainforest canopy in awe. Then I looked down and realized there were no handrails. I was shocked. In the US this just wouldn’t happen. There would be railings and arrangements for disabled people and cable cars, so no one collapsed on the way up.

We’re Americans. We live in a country with quite a few resources. A country that has city, state, and federal governments that do all kinds of things that allow us the illusion of complete safety. We rarely see holes in the sidewalks or stairs without railings. Signs are everywhere reminding us how to stay safe. “Caution Drop Off”. “Plastic bags can suffocate you”. “Apple filling is hot”.

All of these precautions are aimed at one thing. Minimizing risk. Not eliminating risk but minimizing risk. The concept is “layers of protection”. It starts with each of us watching out for our own safety, then the safety of loved ones or companions. Then there are the institutional measures of railings, signs, metal detectors, airbags, childproof caps, security checks, health codes, etc. Institutions have sign in areas to filter visitors, schools lock all doors but the entrance, lifeguard towers have “lifeguard only” signs, etc.

It works almost too well. We forget that all of these layers of protection, while reducing risk, do not guarantee that we’ll be totally safe. We forget that there is no guarantee because we’re constantly inundated. We look for blame when accidents happen (“Was he wearing his seatbelt?”). And then we go to the beach.

Of all places the ocean is still the Wild Wild West. We do a great job of mitigating the risk considering that the ocean is something by its very nature that can’t be controlled. We train our lifeguards beyond all standards and expectations. We maintain over 600 safety signs up and down the beach. We have layers upon layers of supervisors, vehicles, and watchers for the watchers. And at beaches guarded by United States Lifesaving Association lifeguards (like ours) your chances of drowning in a guarded area are 1 in 18 million. But ultimately, we are only an additional layer of protection. We can’t guarantee safety, only mitigate risk.

Part of the beauty of visiting the beach is that once you step beyond the shoreline you are outside of all the human-made environment. That feeling of freedom you have when you dive into the surf is partly because of that. It’s important to remember, however, that you are mostly outside of all those safety nets. 30 yards from shore might as well be a 3-day trek into the wilderness.

So, do what you can when you’re out in all that freedom. Swim near a lifeguard, stay away from structures, and assign a water watcher for starters. Then get out there!

Surfing Ordinance

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Summer is close! The water is getting close to 80 degrees and the early crowds we saw this spring have not slacked off. And we just graduated an amazing new group of Wave Watcher volunteers! Apart from an intermittent smattering of man-o-war and some wind, the conditions have been nice. Looking at the calendar, it […]

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Galveston Fire Department and Beach Patrol

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This is Peter Davis, Chief of the Beach Patrol.  I want to clarify how much I and my staff respect the Galveston Fire Department and all they do.  We’ve worked together for years and many of my best guards now work as firefighters.  They are an amazing organization and we deeply value our partnership.

I called Chief Olsen this morning because my comments have been misinterpreted to imply their incredible staff aren’t the trusted heroes they are.  My job is to reduce risk and the proposal that we put forth to share a facility with our partners in the Fire Department and maintain a small sub station on Stewart Beach does that.

The Galveston Island Beach Patrol

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The Galveston Island Beach Patrol (GIBP) is certified as an “advanced” level agency of the United States Lifesaving Association and is the designated lifeguard service for the city of Galveston. It is a Texas Department of Health certified first response agency employing lifeguards, senior guards, supervisors, peace officers, and dispatchers. The mission of GIBP is to protect the over 7 million people who visit the Galveston beaches each year, respond to aquatic emergencies 24/7/365, educate the public about beach safety, and be a good community partner. GIBP interfaces with other city public safety agencies like Galveston Police, Fire and Emergency Services on a daily basis.

Beach Patrol deploys 24 lifeguard towers staffed by lifeguards who meet and exceed the qualifications established by the United States Lifesaving Association. Galveston’s beaches are challenging to guard. Heavy crowds, rip current generating jetties, and constantly changing conditions keep guards very busy all year.

GIPB is funded solely by hotel occupancy tax (generated by overnight stays in hotels and vacation rentals). Beach Patrol is the designated lifeguard service for the City of Galveston’s 32 miles of beach but uses no taxes from the citizens’ ad valorem tax dollars.

Beach Patrol has called the Stewart Beach Pavilion home for the past 30 years. It has operated from Stewart Beach since the ‘40s. During the summer season, it houses more than 140 lifeguards, 120 junior guards, and 50 volunteers.

Beach Patrol’s junior guard program consists of 120 youth ages 10-15 with an interest in the beach environment. The objectives of the program are centered around values of mental and physical discipline and the respect of themselves, others, authority, and the natural environment. Many of the participants go on to be GIBP lifeguards. In fact, around 40% of the guards from the USA come through the program. The “break even” program is very economical and designed to be accessible to all Galveston’s kids.

Two other community programs under the Beach Patrol net are the Wave Watchers (WW) and the Survivor Support Network (SSN). Wave Watchers provide a way for citizens to join the Beach Patrol team. In partnership with Jesse Tree, GIBP maintains a cadre of volunteers who specialize in mental health, religious support, translation, and logistical support for families of victims of drowning fatality. The program also supports the critical incident stress needs of the Beach Patrol and of other public safety entities in the area.

GIPB partners with organizations like Galveston Marine Response (GMR) and the Galveston County Citizens Emergency Response Team (CERT). GMR is multi-agency response group comprised of Galveston Fire Department, Galveston Police Marine Division, Galveston Island Beach Patrol, Jamaica Beach Fire Rescue, Galveston EMS, and the Galveston Sheriff Office Marine Division. The CERT Program educates citizens about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills. GIBP also has a formalized partnership with the Houston/Galveston National Weather Service office and coordinates daily on hazards including rip currents, lightning, storms, and tidal events.

Stop by and visit your Beach Patrol!

Lightning

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On a summer day in the early ‘80’s, a lone lifeguard stood on Stewart Beach. The air was thick as a dark, green frontal system moved in from the north.  In the distance lifeguard trucks drove up and down the beach using their loudspeakers to let people know lightning was moving into the area. Bolts of lightning struck nearby.  The lifeguard whistled at the few remaining people in the area and yelled for them to get out of the water. Suddenly, time stood still, and the air crackled with electricity. He realized he was lying on his back. A filling in his mouth hurt, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he felt as if insects were running across his temples. He had survived his first lightning strike. Later, he would be struck again while playing tennis with an aluminum racket.

A similar incident occurred a few years back to a lifeguard in Florida but resulted in a fatality. Every year, many people on or near bodies of water are struck by lightning. In the US, the highest numbers are in states bordering the Great Lakes, southern states bordering the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and the four corner states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona.

Lightning most frequently occurs within 10 miles of a thunderstorm, so it is generally recommended that people take shelter when lightning comes within this distance. One way to tell how close lightning is involves counting the seconds between the flash of lightning and the corresponding thunder roar. This is known as the “flash to bang rule”. Every five seconds is a mile. If the time between the flash and the bang is less than 50 seconds, you want to clear out.

For a number of years, I’ve been part of a group working on a joint public education program for the United States Lifesaving Organization (USLA) and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service (NWS). Through this I realized that there’s lots I didn’t know about lightning. For example, I wasn’t aware that it wasn’t enough to seek shelter in a building. It has to be fully enclosed, grounded, and have electrical and plumbing. Boats aren’t really safe at all, but if you have to ride it out in one, it should be in a cabin without touching electronics or the walls. Cars are pretty safe, but not as good as proper buildings, and again, don’t touch metal frameworks.

If you are caught in a lightning storm on the beach and can’t get to an enclosed building or car, don’t just run to a partially enclosed picnic table or similar structure. Instead, stay away from the tallest objects (lifeguard stands, light poles, flag poles), metal objects (fences or bleachers), standing pools of water, and open areas.

You can monitor thunderstorms and severe weather forecasts online at www.spc.noaa.gov . For more information about lightning safety, a good site is www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov .

Wave Watcher Academy – Register Now!

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2023

 

WAVE WATCHER ACADEMY

 

IN-PERSON

 

APRIL 17TH – APRIL 20TH

 

9:00 a.m. – Noon

 

STEWART BEACH PAVILION

 

201 SEAWALL BLVD, GALVESTON TX

If you are interested in attending, please email Angie @ gibpadmin@galvestonparkboard.org

 

 

Easter Weekend and WW Academy

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Well, if anyone was in doubt the beach season is definitely here! Good Friday! The water hit the mid 70’s this week and it’s suddenly full of fish. If you’re planning to go out in the Easter Weekend madness, please swim near a lifeguarded tower and stay far away from those rock jetties and piers. We’ve had really rough surf and strong rip currents so there are deep troughs and strong rips near the rocks and the sand everywhere underwater is uneven. Stay close to shore, assign a water watcher, don’t drink and swim, and swim alone. If you have non-swimmers or small children in your party make sure they’re in a life jacket. If you swim on the west end, especially the San Luis Pass, remember we won’t have a lifeguard presence out there until summertime.

Last year around this time, a group of people stood near the end of the rock groin at 37th street. They took turns removing the ring buoy and attached throw bag from the rescue box and throwing it to an imaginary victim in the water. The ring should be tossed over the head of the victim and gently pulled back to where the person’s head is. If you miss, you don’t take the time to stuff the rope back in the bag but coil it on one hand while stepping on the “bag end” of the rope. Your coils should go from the body out, so when you throw, they don’t cross over the other ropes and tangle. As in much rescue work, the simplest thing gets complicated if not done the same way each time. It’s all about eliminating variables, so when things inevitably go wrong, you have less on your plate.

We are kicking off our first virtual Wave Watcher Academy on the 17th. There’s an option for both virtual classes and in person. The virtual parts will be available Monday the 10th and people can mix and match online material starting then with in-person classes the week of the 17-22nd. They can certify in CPR and will became official “Tourist Ambassadors”. We cover beach topography and near shore bathymetry, rip and longshore currents, protocols for lost children, beach rules and ordinances, drowning events, dangerous marine life and treatments, and Galveston areas that are hazardous to swimmers. On the final day they’ll tour the beach, will be issued uniform shirts and hats, receive an official ID card, and we’ll finish up with a celebratory lunch together.

The Wave Watcher stats are entered into our database so we can keep track of preventative or enforcement actions. By tracking the stats for the lifeguards, beach park security program, Wave Watchers, and Park Staff we get a good indicator of the amount of work being done to protect our locals and tourists on the beach.

The Wave Watcher program has become an integral part of our family. Information is on our website, so let us know if you want to jump into the class.

 

Be safe out there!

 

Spring Break Wrap Up

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Spring Break started with a bang and ended with a whimper. That first weekend was scary from our perspective! Massive crowds, lots of current and waves, warm air and water, and sparse lifeguard coverage kept us moving fast, as we raced from hot spot to hot spot to keep people away from the rip currents near the jetties.

Early Saturday morning I called the police and fire departments for some help and they ran patrols both days on the seawall to help us spot trouble developing. Its good to have friends. Because of their efforts, some really hard work by the Beach Patrol staff, and a bit of luck we got through the first weekend. Then it got cold and most of the tourists that were all over the beach went to the other island attractions and stayed there for the rest of the week through last weekend.

Even with the cold weather, our stats over Spring Break were impressive, especially when considering most of the numbers happened over a three day period. I usually give a general overview when giving stats, but its interesting to see the specifics:

We moved 9,605 people from danger- mostly away from the rocks. We enforced park rules or city ordinances 84 times (11 of these were vehicles driving illegally on the beach), and Park Security did this 187 times (they only worked the first weekend). We responded to 18 medical calls, 7 of them were serious enough to be transported to the hospital. We responded to one possible drowning and made 4 rescues. We logged giving tourist information 137 times (this stat is notoriously lower than the reality of how many tourists we have direct contact with). We reunited a couple of lost kids with their parents and gave 1,344 water safety talks.

Those numbers are a good reflection of how much work we do. But when compared to the summertime numbers we accumulate when all 34 lifeguard towers are staffed and our trucks cover the entire beachfront, they’re pretty small. Just to give a general idea, in an average year we routinely move between 300,000 and 500,000 people from dangerous areas, make 3-4,000 enforcements, do around 30,000 water safety talk contacts, etc. The numbers are really staggering and show how much preventative work our lifeguards do. If you think about it, we do most of the preventative actions over a 9-month period, 7 of which we have guards in towers and the other two we’re working out of trucks only. That math comes out to just under 1,500 swimmers moved per day, or 12,500 preventative actions per lifeguard tower per season.

Those numbers are pretty overwhelming when you think what would happen if we weren’t there during the critical times and places to move people away from potentially lethal rip currents. It explains why our recent tryouts and academy that only produced three graduates terrified our staff.

It explains why we are such fanatics about all things that make up the complicated beach safety defense web.

Rips and Rescues

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Lt Austin Kirwin drove down the seawall taking quick looks at the swimmers in the water as he wove his way through traffic. The whole staff was on edge with the unfortunate rip current related drowning fatalities of the twins out of Houston.

Suddenly he saw something off of Murdochs that didn’t look right. Erratic splashing and movement in the water drew his attention to what looked like four heads out past the end of the rock jetties. He called for backup, found a place to park, grabbed two rescue tubes from the back of his patrol truck, and ran as fast as he could down to the sand and into the water. Austin keeps himself in top shape and is an excellent runner and swimmer.

Things got confusing when he hit the water. A bystander also had spotted the swimmers and was on his way out to help as well. The rest was a blur, but within a couple of minutes Austin had thrown a tube to two people that were floating on it. He’d made it to two more farther out and brought them back to the two and had all four reasonably stabilized. Sergeant Andy Moffett made it to him quickly and took two of them off his hands, and Supervisor Micah Fowler was able to spot and rescue the would be good Samaritan. All 5 made it back to shore in good shape. Austin even was able to dry off quickly and make it to a press conference about the tragedy of the twins as the other guards made sure the rescued were OK and collected their information for a report.

So many things had to come together to keep this from being another tragedy. Training, work ethic, funding, and infrastructure, are all pieces to the equation. But equally important are the intangibles, like Austin being able to use his years of experience and that sixth sense that enabled him to translate those little splashes in his peripheral vision into perception of a threat that needed quick response.

It stands to reason that both fatal and non-fatal drownings are also largely the result of rips when talking about the beachfront. But there isn’t one size fits all for rip currents. The current that was likely the cause of the twins’ death was a structural rip. A current caused by a pier that sticks out into the water. These are known as “permanent rips” because they’re always there in varying degrees. The current that almost took the lives that Austin, Andy, and Micah saved was right in the middle of open beach. Some combination of factors related to the form of the shoreline and the submerged shape of the bottom (bathymetry) caused a rip current to run out in that specific area for a finite amount of time. This is a “fixed rip”. These are the two main types of rip currents found along the Texas coast. They’re responsible for 80% of our rescues and likely both fatal and non-fatal drownings.