By Ed Offley
It’s been a record year for tourists visiting Panama City Beach, but thanks to stepped-up water safety measures, the area has evaded the spike in drownings that occurred all too frequently in recent years.
But the path has not been easy, says the city’s Beach Safety Division chief.
“It’s very challenging to cover the beach with the record number of people coming this year with the resources we have,” said PCB Beach Safety Division chief Wil Spivey. “I’m so very proud of my team. They’ve been doing a really wonderful job with the resources we have.”
Following a record twelve drownings on the Beach in 2019, City Council ordered a comprehensive overhaul of its beach safety operations with the goal of putting more responders on the beach, improving public safety awareness programs and reducing emergency response time for potential drowning incidents.
Responding to the spike in fatalities, the city consolidated the work previously handled by city firefighters and police patrols, creating a Beach Safety Division operating under the city’s Fire Rescue Department. The program this year hired twelve seasonal lifeguards trained in open-water rescue who man two lifeguard stations at the Russell-Fields city pier, Spivey said. In addition, there are five full time employees who manage the lifeguards and conduct roving patrols along the rest of the city’s 9.5-mile beachfront. In emergency situations, another dozen city firefighters qualified in open-water rescue constitute a backup force.
The lifeguards are on duty from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day during the tourism season running from April 1 to September 30.
Beach safety does not come cheap. For PCB, the budget this year is $814,000, including $345,000 from the city’s general fund and a $470,000 allocation from the Tourist Development Council that covers not just the beach safety operation, but police overtime for special events, said PCB spokeswoman Debbie Ward. Nearly three-fourths of the funds cover personnel costs, including the $15 per hour paid to the lifeguards.
In an additional move, the city in 2019 enacted an ordinance providing for a $500 fine for swimmers who two times disobeyed an order to leave the water when double red warning flags signal that the Gulf is closed to swimming. Council this spring tightened up on that measure, directing that the $500 citation be issued after only a single warning.
Bay County manages a parallel operation with lifeguard stands at the M.B. Miller County Pier and Frank Seltzer Park on Thomas Drive, with roving deputies patrolling the ten miles of unincorporated county beach front east and west of the city.
City lifeguards have had their hands full with record crowds at the Beach following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, Spivey said. Between January 1 and July 12, lifeguards entered the water to assist swimmers in distress 1,633 times. They made contact with an estimated 560,000 beachgoers to educate them on the warning flag system or to warn of dangerous rip currents.
The added safeguards have had a positive effect. Thus far this year there have been only five reported drownings in the Gulf of Mexico despite the record number of visitors.
More help may soon be on the way. The Bay County Tourist Development Council last month recommended that the Bay County Commission double the reimbursement to the city and county for public safety costs related to tourism. Currently the county provides 10 percent of two pennies of the current five-cent bed tax to help cover beach safety programs; the proposal would double that, raising the total provided from $1 million to $2 million per year. The County Commission was expected to act on the proposal at its first meeting in August.
Ward said the city has not yet decided how such additional funds would be specifically allocated.
Spivey welcomed the move, cautioning that there is a need for more than just twelve seasonal lifeguards with the ever-expanding tourism. His current seventeen full time and seasonal employees are “still not enough,” Spivey cautioned.
“This year, coming out of the pandemic, businesses everywhere have had trouble hiring staff, and it’s been no different for us,” he said. “I never worked so hard putting my team together.”
The special challenge, Spivey said, is that beach safety programs cannot afford to lower their standards as a tactic for recruiting additional lifeguards. You can’t lower the bar” he said. “You have to be able to go out in double-red [flag] surf and pull people out of it.”
Even though the 2021 tourist season has only two months left to run, Spivey said he is willing to train qualified applicants for open lifeguard positions. Those wishing to become a seasonal lifeguard must first pass an initial physical assessment, which includes swimming 500 meters in a pool in under ten minutes, then completing a one-mile-run in under twelve minutes.
“If they can meet that, we send them to a clinic to get a physical that says they are fit enough to withstand the rigors of open water lifeguarding,” Spivey said. Once cleared, there is a 40-hour course for accreditation as an open-water lifeguard. The current pay for city lifeguards is $15 per hour.
Anyone interested in applying can email Spivey at
Wil.Spivey@pcbfl.gov.
