Shekar Krishnan
0:06:35
The continued lifeguard shortage, of course, remains problematic.
0:06:39
The Parks department has historically assigned around 1400 lifeguards to beaches and pools throughout this video by July 4th.
0:06:48
However, during the 2022 beach and pool season, the Parks department only hired 778 lifeguards by July, in other words, about half of where we needed to be.
0:06:59
In 2023, there were only 480 lifeguards to start the season in May.
0:07:05
This past season, about 900 were able to be hired.
0:07:10
Yes, improvement, but still far off from fully staffing our pools and beaches.
0:07:17
Polls and beaches did remain open.
0:07:19
However, as a result of the shortage, the parks department had to adjust areas on beaches that could remain open to swimming during the summer.
0:07:29
And to its credit, the Parks department has recognized the problem and reacted by raising lifeguard pay rates from 2022 through this year.
0:07:39
It is also engaged in numerous efforts to start the recruitment process earlier and adjust the training and testing regimen in efforts to increase the number of potential applicants.
0:07:49
These are conversations the commissioner not have had directly, but the shortage persists and has obviously impacted public safety.
0:07:58
And for a mayor who claims to care deeply about public safety, or is about quality of life, the fact that we cannot staff off pools and beaches, that we are losing teenagers to the waters every year, makes his words ring hollow.
0:08:16
And yes, there is a national lifeguard so shortage.
0:08:19
No one denies that, but that is not an excuse for inaction.
0:08:24
That is a reason to get creative, far more ambitious about the measures we can take in the confines of the crisis, to do all we can as a city, to create, to hire, train, and keep lifeguards and also create a pipeline for them.
0:08:42
It's crucial that we recognize the work that lifeguards perform day in and day out.
0:08:47
Despite the incidents that occurred this summer, lifeguards make countless saves and are the primary reason why there aren't even more emergencies at our beaches and pools.
0:08:58
No doubt their work is heroic.
0:09:00
And part of our purpose here today is to highlight how heroic lifeguards are and how necessary they are to have a sufficient number of them to prevent the loss of life and injury.
