Dobbins

/in , , /by

The older guard pointed to the west side of the 47th street groin as he pulled the jeep over quickly. “Look at that rip, let’s go check it out!” he yelled as the pair sprinted down the rocks and jumped off a rock that was “just right”. The older guard then made them climb up the rocks again despite the churning surf, algae, and barnacles. Over and over the pair climbed up and jumped back into the surf before getting back in the jeep and racing up and down the seawall moving swimmers and checking on guards.

I worked with Jim Dobbins on weekends during the mid 80’s. The days were full and active. Lunches generally lasted about 15 minutes and consisted of a quick bowl of rice in his beachside apartment. I learned a great deal.

He taught the guards how to work the rocks. In those years a guard worked a groin all summer and Jim knew each rock of each groin. He taught guards where it was “safe” to jump from, and how to move around on the rocks without getting cut up. An avid surfer, he knew the rip currents well, and taught the guards how to use them to get to a victim quickly. He was a ball of energy as he made each guard that worked the seawall swim his/her area each morning so they would know exactly where the holes and currents were for the day (a practice that we continue to this day). He was relentless in stressing the importance of getting to someone before they actually got in trouble.

Dr. Jim Dobbins was an Epidemiologist working as a professor at UTMB in those years. As a teacher, he didn’t like being away from hands on preventative work in his field. With the Beach Patrol he was able to put theory into practice in the direct prevention of injury on Galveston’s beaches. He went on to work for the Center for Disease Control in a research program and later was employed by the World Health Organization. With the W.H.O he was able to once again take a hands-on approach as the guy who was tasked with handling potential infectious disease outbreaks in the Caribbean.

On Jim’s first day of work he responded to 7 people on inner tubes getting pushed into the South Jetty under extreme conditions. He was able to push them through a gap one by one and finally able to get himself through. He was shredded by rocks and exhausted but committed to preventing this type of thing from happening. He devised a strategy where people were kept far from the jetty, which we still employ.

Now in his 70’s Jim visits Galveston periodically. He likes to talk about the old days. But I think he really enjoys seeing how proactive we’ve become as an agency. Many of the techniques we use to keep people from ever getting into trouble today are based on strategies he implemented. After all, prevention is the essence of both Epidemiology and Lifesaving.

 

Dobbins

 

Rescue Theory

/in , /by

A swimmer’s head sits low in the water and his arms flap out to the sides while trying to keep his head up. The lifeguard sees the telltale signs of a swimmer in distress. She immediately kicks into a whole pre-determined plan. She radios for backup, grabs her fins and rescue tube, chooses the proper entry (from sand or rocks), and dolphins through shallow water while unwrapping her tube. Swimming with her head intermittently up to keep sight of the victim, she pauses on the approach, and talks to him as she keeps her buoy between them while extending it. Upon contact, she moves to his rear and buckles the buoy around him, assesses him, signals to shore what his condition is and if she needs help, swims him to the beach while checking intermittently, re-checks him more thoroughly at the shore and renders whatever medical aid is needed. While doing this she prepares to pass all this info on to her supervisor or other first responders.

Making an ocean rescue is a complicated process which requires a great deal of preparation to effect safely. There are a lot of ways this could potentially go sideways, so we spend a large percentage of precious training time on this topic. Obviously there is a lot of physical training required in advance so the body is prepared, but the real keys are the mental aspects. These we break into two general categories, elimination of variables and cognitive flexibility under stress.

Elimination of variables encompasses a whole range of physical, mental, and psychological components. The overarching concept is when you start the rescue process there are a lot of things that need to happen, so you want to make sure you take care of as many of these variables as you can in advance and have fewer unknowns as you enter the rescue scenario. In addition to the areas that are consistent between most rescues, each event is unique and so things will be encountered that that could not be planned for.

When you go into action your body instinctively kicks in a whole range of physiological responses so you can do things you wouldn’t normally be able to do. Time seems to slow down as chemicals are dumped into your blood stream. Depending on your training and history, you can experience a diminished mental capacity while at the same time have an enhanced physical capability. Taking care of as many things as possible in advance is crucial since you may not be at your best mentally during the rescue process. The key components in the concept of elimination of variables are: level of fitness, skills, equipment preparation, and state of readiness.

Level of fitness involves a great deal of physical training that is specific to the actual environment that rescues will be made in. Our guards work out before every shift so they’re intimately familiar with the bottom contour, waves, and currents of that particular day. We also use competition as a means to motivate the entire staff to be at their physical peak during the beach season.

Rescue skills atrophy if not used regularly. Incorporated into our daily pre-shift workouts is a skill component. They may practice CPR, hand signals, components of a rescue, public relations, or handling a lost child. Sports enthusiasts and public safety professionals regularly use the term “muscle memory” to signify repeating something over and over again until you don’t have to consciously think about it. For example you may practice a modification to your swim stroke so many times that you start doing it automatically when you swim. They may be using the term incorrectly in this context, but it makes sense in that it’s almost like your body remembers how to do something without your brain having to tell it. If these skills are kept current through repeated training and practice, they happen almost subconsciously during the rescue process so the rescuers consciousness isn’t spread too thin. He/she can then focus on the weird stuff that inevitably happens, instead of on things that need to happen for every rescue.

Equipment preparedness is integral in the process. There’s nothing worse than having equipment malfunction when trying to save another person. A fairly routine rescue can go horribly wrong when a fin strap breaks or a buoy is wrapped up improperly so the strap doesn’t play out smoothly. There’s a reason fire departments insist that each piece of equipment is maintained and put up the same way each time. When you need that hose or pump, it needs to be easy to get and needs to work. One of the first things the lifeguards learn is how to properly wrap their rescue buoy. Once this is committed to “muscle memory” it’s automatically done the same way each time. Each guard uses the same technique so the buoys are interchangeable if they have to use someone else’s equipment. The same principle applies to oxygen units, personal water craft, rescue vehicles, automatic external defibrillators and any other piece of equipment. If you get in a rescue truck at any point of the day or night the equipment is stored the same way, every piece of equipment works, it’s full of gas, and ready to go. Fewer variables stand between the rescuer and successfully saving a life.

State of readiness is a general concept that basically means the lifeguards come to the job each day prepared mentally, physically, and psychologically. They are able to maintain a state of alertness for their entire shift because they are well rested, hydrated, and wearing the proper gear for sun protection or temperature control. It also implies that they leave their personal problems at home and don’t let any issues they may be having interfere with their work or concentration on duties. It’s better to have an empty tower than a lifeguard who is there physically but who is not focused. The only person who truly can monitor this is the lifeguards themselves, so the expectation is that they will remove themselves from duty if there’s some reason that they can’t focus on the job. Finally, before a lifeguard is able to work a stand, he/she needs to have developed a certain level of confidence in his/her ability to save someone. This is accomplished by all the aforementioned skills and through a belief that they can handle unusual situations on the fly because they are proficient in their ability think creatively under the gun.

Cognitive flexibility under stress, the ability to demonstrate flexibility and creative problem solving strategies under duress, is a little harder concept for the guards to grasp at first. Through repetition neural pathways become more “worn”, much like a foot path that has been traveled more often and therefore becomes easier to use. This is a good thing in that response to a given stimuli becomes automatic, but with the obvious benefits come inherent risks. The potential issue lies in the environment itself. The ocean and beach are in a constant state of flux, as are the beach patrons themselves.  No rescue is routine, as there are a multitude of factors that can affect the process. When in a stressful situation we all have a tendency to default to what we know. That’s good if it means we perform CPR the way we were trained. But you also hear stories about police officers who, in the midst of a shootout, start collecting their empty magazines off of the street because that’s the way they did it when practicing at the range. The goal of teaching people to show “cognitive flexibility” during a rescue or crisis is for them to default to their training while at the same time being able to expand their awareness and come up with creative solutions to problems that pop up while dealing with a multitude of issues.

Understanding this principle helps in the teaching process. In ocean lifeguarding we teach from the top down. Our instructors focus on the overarching principles and teach to trouble shoot application of these principles to a variety of real life scenarios. For example, instead of teaching exactly how to make contact with a victim in the water, we focus on basic principles such as keeping floatation between the rescuer and victims’ bodies, pausing and assessing a safe distance from a victim. That way the concept works when you use other types of floatation and/or in a myriad of specific rescue techniques. Or we may talk about tone of voice as opposed to specific words to say to a victim. Once these general concepts are internalized through training and repetition (muscle memory), the guards become more confident and comfortable in their ability handle anything that is thrown at them.

These concepts and a respect for the power and variability of the ocean are the beginnings of forging competent and professional lifeguards.

Lauren Hollaway

/in , , /by

In 1997, six year old Lauren Hollaway started swimming for the Galveston Island Swim Team and 4 years later started as a Galveston Island Beach Patrol Junior Lifeguard along with other future guards Laura Carr, Jessica Riedel, Anna Hyatt, Bori Juhasz, and Mary Stewart.

Still 10, she told her dad she wanted her own Beach Patrol truck one day. She was able to compete in the United States Lifesaving Association National Competitions in places like Daytona Beach, Virginia Beach, and Huntington Beach.

At 16, she tried out for Beach Patrol along with a whole bunch of other Junior Lifeguards. She worked hard and moved up the ranks.

She graduated Ball High School in 2009. In 2013, she graduated from Tulane with a Bachelor’s in Science Management- Marketing and Finance. Upon graduation she worked in Houston doing marketing for a sportswear company. Having grown up on the beach she didn’t like city life or the urban lifestyle. She missed being by the water and when an opening came up she applied for a position as a full time Lifeguard Supervisor for the Beach Patrol.

When asked why she wants to work as a career lifeguard she said she “loves  interacting with the public, raising public awareness related to beach safety, and how we as an organization share our passion for the beach and for the safety of others”. She says “you can see the difference you can make in a beachgoer’s life just through a small interaction”.

She always appreciated supervisors she had coming up who took extra time to mentor a young guard. Supervisors like Amie Hufton, Loree Pryor, and Gretchen Tyson were big influences on her and are largely responsible for her love of “the family aspect that is so integral to this job”.

She finds the biggest challenge to be showing new guards how to best interact with the public, especially teaching conflict resolution strategies and how to enforce rules. Once, as a young guard, she expressed her frustration with a beach patron to Loree Pryor who immediately asked her, “When you’re on vacation, do you think about your own safety?” This put it in perspective for Lauren. You have to be able to meet people where they are and understand their situation/point of view before you can reach resolution.

Another challenge is teaching the true understanding that the beach environment is in a constant state of flux. She says that “Getting this concept to the newer lifeguards is particularly challenging because they’re nervous and rigid, and not used to such a changing environment. There are no guard rails or bumpers at the beach”.

She says “This organization has opened so many doors for me… being able to handle such responsibility at a young age because of my experiences working the beach has been an invaluable life experience and has equipped me to deal with a variety of circumstances…[It] gives a broader perspective and keeps you grounded. Once you’ve dealt with life and death, normal day to day issues seems pretty manageable.”

 

1900 Storm

/in , /by

By the time 1900 rolled around, Galveston was the undisputed cultural and recreational center of this part of the country. Almost 500 bars and 50 brothels put it on par with the historically raucous New Orleans, and it ranked 2nd in the country for cotton exports and 3rd in wheat. Dredging ensured a constant flow of vessels in its deep water port and beautiful mansions lined Broadway, which at 9 feet of elevation was the highest street at the time.

Brothers Isaac and Joseph Cline ran the Galveston office of the National Weather Service and did their best to warn people of the upcoming storm, although they did not have the early detection systems we enjoy today. With only three ways off the island, 3 railroad bridges and one wagon bridge, it would have made little difference anyway.

We all know the story, or at least parts of it. On September 8th the island was battered by 120 mile winds and a storm surge of 15.7 feet. Isaac’s wife took refuge in the Cline house with a crowd and a streetcar came loose in the floodwaters and demolished the house. Her body wasn’t found for two weeks. The first six blocks on the beach side was completely cleared of buildings. 90 orphans and 10 nuns died when the roof of the St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum collapsed. Over 6,000 people died on the island, and the total death toll was around 10,000 as the big storm lumbered all the way up to Canada. The morning after the storm many of those who survived had been clinging to floating wreckage for hours as they watched loved ones crushed and mangled all around them throughout the night. At first light they found a 30 block pile of debris comprised of parts of houses, businesses, as well as animal and human carcasses. Bodies were collected, weighted down, and sent off on rafts. They then floated back days later, bloated and almost unrecognizable. The task of burning the thousands of bodies was assigned to African American workers, often at gunpoint, which no doubt added to the increasing racial tension during this era of Jim Crow.

But, somehow we recovered. With the help of volunteers from Houston, the Red Cross, US Army, and Salvation Army, we cleaned up and started rebuilding. A new commission-style municipal government got things done. We built the first section of the seawall, raising parts of the island as high as 17 feet, deposited 500 city blocks of landfill, built a two mile concrete causeway, and made numerous improvements to the wharves.

At the recent kickoff for the large beach re-nourishment projects, Jerry Patterson described Galvestonians as being “resilient”. It’s hard to imagine us doing something of the magnitude of our forefathers. Often we seem to argue more than build. This project is, however, very encouraging. I wonder if this is a portent.

With the 1900 storm as our shared mythology and a beacon to what potential we as Galvestonians possess, who knows what we’re capable of?

 

Photo Courtesy of Library of Congress

Surfing Mecca

/in , /by

Part of the surfing tradition is the mandatory pilgrimage to the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii is the spiritual ground zero for modern surfing. Part of this is that the islands are smack dab in the middle of the largest body of water on the planet and are basically mountains thrust up from the bottom of the ocean. So not only is there the most distance to gather swell, but going from thousands of feet of oceanic depth to shallow reefs is a guarantee for considerable energy to be dumped on the shoreline which results in impressive and consistent surf. But there are great waves all over the planet, so the question is why do surfers everywhere look to Hawaii as their surfing spiritual Mecca?

It’s not that Hawaiian surfing predated the rest of the planet. Throughout the Polynesian Islands, surfing was practiced before Hawaii was settled. In various parts of Africa it’s been documented that people surfed on short wooden boards hundreds of years ago. But only in Hawaii has surfing been such a key component in the tapestry of the culture.

At the time that Captain Cook arrived both men and women surfed regularly. There was a complicated governance structure where kings and queens demonstrated their power and competence at least partially in the water. But it wasn’t just surfing. Overall water competence was highly valued with the youth playing competitive games involving wrestling in the water, breath holding competitions, outrigger racing, and diving under big waves in the impact zone for sport. It was a breeding ground for water competence that had not been seen at that level perhaps throughout history.

The reasons are many that surfing was such an integral part of the Hawaiian lifestyle, religion, and power structure. First of all there was a sort of natural selection because the Polynesian people that actually reached the islands had to travel hundreds of miles in really small, open, outrigger boats. The first Hawaiians were water people who were closely and deeply connected with the ocean. There was an abundance of fish, lots of edible plants, and a perfect climate for growing. Surfing requires a great deal of leisure time and energy. Ancient Hawaiians not only fished, but grew vegetables on terraced farming areas, bred pigs and other farm animals, and even created fish farms in man-made pools. In fact they were so successful in taking care of the basic life necessities that their leaders reportedly outlawed any type of work for three months out of the year for a big festival. Along with all the religious obligations and parties, a large percentage of the population simply surfed. The ruling class could surf all year as well.

But I think the main reason modern surfers look to Hawaii is the echo we still hear from the idea of surfing as both a lifestyle and a quest. The Hawaiian word for surf is “nalu”. It also means to search for the true nature of things, and is used for the liquid covering a baby at birth.

 

Photo Credit: Stan Shebs

Winter Is Here

/in , /by

Water temperature in the 50’s is a game changer. Even our hard core surfers don’t last long with the 3 millimeter wetsuits most Texans wear, and the only swimmers we encounter seem to be Russian or Canadian.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and got to spend time with people they care about. This is always a great time to reflect on things we’re grateful for. I personally feel really appreciative of the hard work our staff did this season, the support of all the groups we work with and the community of Galveston, and the chance to slow down for a bit, recharge the batteries, and fill in some details that we couldn’t get to during the busy season.

We’re almost at the end of our patrol season with this weekend being the last where we’re proactively out there checking the beaches for a while. Most of our crew has been working hard refurbishing our 28 lifeguard towers while alternating the days they take a patrol shift. They’ve also been doing one last pass of replacement and repair of the 300 or so signs we maintain along 33 miles of beachfront. But starting December 1st everyone will focus on finishing the towers up so they can spend the remaining time until everyone is able to work on individual projects.

Each of our full time supervisors has an area of responsibility that they take full charge of. There is a window of time from late December until March 1st when they have time to get the bulk of this work done. Some of the areas are board and craft repair/maintenance, website upgrades, virtual lifeguard museum, recruiting/water safety video projects, policy and procedure manual updates, training material preparation, and ordering supplies and equipment.

One major change we are trying to make is to move to an almost completely paperless system. We recently purchased computers for each vehicle so reports can be done while overseeing a zone of responsibility. We’re getting close to purchasing an electronic records management system for storage and easy retrieval of reports and other documents. My hope is that by 2016 we can operate with 90% digital files and documents.

There’s an upcoming event that I wanted to mention. We’ll follow up with more details, but the annual public safety Christmas parade is scheduled for Saturday, December 13th in the morning. This event has been growing and has been a fun X-mas holiday kick off. It’s been a nice way for first responders from different agencies to show our community how appreciative we are for the support we receive. Also it’s an opportunity for the community to show support for everything these hard working public safety organizations’ men and women do.

From all of us at the Galveston Beach Patrol we hope that you and yours have a wonderful holiday season. Hopefully you’ll have the time and opportunity to reflect on and appreciate the things and people that are most important to you.

Aloha Doc

/in , /by

As a wide eyed 16 year old surfer, I made my first pilgrimage to the west coast in 1980. I flew into LAX and hitchhiked down the California coast while camping, absorbing the west coast lifestyle of the day, and surfing at all the famous spots I’d read about in the magazines. During that trip I was fortunate (or destined) to meet one of the biggest heroes in lifesaving, surfing, and Galveston history.

I was sitting on the beach at San Onofre after surfing the morning at Trestles, which is just south of San Clemente. An older man came up and started talking to me. Normally while traveling alone you’d be a little wary about strangers but there was something in this guy’s demeanor that caused me to instantly trust him. He was soft spoken and unassuming but had a real presence. We fell into an easy conversation, and he was excited that I was from Galveston like him. He invited me to eat with his family. Turns out, his family was huge and ran a surf school right there on the beach, where they seemed to be permanently camping. One was nicer than the other, and only later would I realize I was meeting a whole tribe of living legends. The surf school was the world renowned Paskowitz Surfing Camp.

Surfing, Lifesaving, and Galveston lost one of its greatest legends recently with the passing of Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, who was the elderly gentleman who’d sensed my loneliness and been so kind to me.

Born the son of Russian and Jewish immigrants on March 1921 right here in Galveston, Doc rode his first wave at age 12 and never stopped surfing throughout his long life. As a young teen he moved to San Diego where he worked as a lifeguard at Mission Beach. In 1946 he graduated at Stanford Medical School and eventually made his way to Israel with the mission of trying to get “Jews and Arabs to surf together”. Kelly Slater, who is touted as the greatest surfer to ever live, said that Doc “…believed that those who surfed together could live together peacefully”.

After coming back to California he practiced what many believe is the true spirit of surfing and lived with his wife and all nine of his kids in a large surf van for many years. He was a big believer in a healthy lifestyle and touted that throughout his medical career and his commitment to the traditional surfers’ lifestyle of living simply, exercising regularly, and eating well. He once said that “Health is a presence of a superior state of wellbeing, a vigor, a vitality, a pizzazz you have to work for every single day of your life.” He put belief into practice by founding the Paskowitz International Surf School, the Paskowitz surfing Psychiatric Clinic, the Paskowitz Surfing Camp and Surfing for Peace.

“It is easier to die when you have lived than it is to die when you haven’t” – Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz

 

 

Low Profile

/in , /by

One of the most interesting of our 111 guards is Jeff Lewis, who has been with the Beach Patrol for 20 years and works part time as a seasonal Supervisor.

I like having Jeff on staff for many reasons. He’s a very competent, professional, and experienced lifeguard. But he’s also someone who is a great role model for the younger guards. Jeff runs both several Nationwide Insurance offices and several Century 21 offices in the Clear Lake Area.  He is also an extremely good triathlete who competes periodically in full Ironman races where he trains to swim 2 miles, bike over 100 miles, and run a full marathon continuously. But he loves lifeguarding and still manages to find the time to keep up his certifications, and work 2-3 days a week throughout the summer.

Imagine being a 16 year old and working your first job. As you drag yourself in to work and whine about having to do an hour of physical and skills training at the beginning of every shift to keep your competency up, you notice Jeff and a small group who showed up a couple of hours before the shift even started and did a full hour and a half of running, swimming, and paddling a rescue board. Then Jeff, who hit the 40 year mark recently, jumps in with the shift workout and blasts past all of the young high school team swimmers without breaking a sweat. And he rearranged his busy, busy life just so he can come do the same job because despite all the other things he has going on, there’s nothing quite as fulfilling as mentoring younger guards and keeping beach patrons safe for Jeff.

Jeff has an identical twin brother Greg. They worked Beach Patrol while running track at Rice University. They were young back then, but are small and looked (and still look) much younger. Because they were such amazing athletes they qualified to represent Texas in the National Lifeguard Championships in Cape May, New Jersey. “Team Texas” was sitting a diner eating breakfast the day before the competition started. Jeff and Greg were sitting together peering over the top of the table when a cute waitress came by to take our order. The diner was busy so she was in a hurry. Greg decided to lay down his “Mac” vibe and started trying to chat her up. When he inevitably said he was a national competitor she kind of snickered, obviously not believing him saying “REEEALLY?” Greg, without missing a beat, quipped, “We like to keep a low profile in Texas”. To this day Jeff and I while training will toss out that line and almost bust a gut.

But my favorite Jeff story is once while he and I were doing a race he pulled a leg muscle and barely finished. At the finish line Greg called and asked what happened to Jeff’s leg. Greg’s leg had a searing pain in the same spot. Greg lives 4 states away and didn’t even know Jeff was racing that day.

 

Frat Story

/in , /by

The freshman sat in his dorm room on the bed as the 3 older guys formed a semi-circle around him. They all wore khaki pleated pants, button-up shirts tucked in, topsiders, and neatly parted hair; contrasting sharply with the surf shirt, baggy shorts, scruffy hair, and flip flops that the younger guy wore.

“You can’t survive on this campus….” Said the leader in an overly deep voice “…without joining a fraternity. (Long pause here for emphasis). ….And the Chi Delts is the most respected frat on campus. We have the pick of the crop, the best parties, and you’ll come out of college with the most useful connections”. The younger guy laughed and looked up at them and said, “If I choose to join a frat I’ll consider you guys, but right now I’ve got some stuff I need to do”. The older guys looked shocked. One said something about how the younger guy would regret not going to the mixer with them and they filed out to round up other recruits.

The thing is that the young guy grew up in Galveston. And for those of you that grew up here you know what I mean. Kids that come from this environment have a very different set of experiences. Galveston has a long, long history of diversity, tolerance, and worldliness. He had grown up with big beach bonfires, high school fraternities and sororities, exposure to all kinds of different people, friends that were from varied backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and religions.

Most of all, he and his peers had grown up on and around the beach. From beach bonfires on the weekends, surfing, mixing socially with friends’ parents, to long bike rides along the seawall hanging out with all kinds of characters.

For better or worse, kids grow up fast here, but the good thing is that when they leave, they have social tools that other kids don’t have at the same age. They also have a strong core and basic sense of fairness that shines through. You can always recognize who’s from here even if you don’t know them.

Galveston is in a real transitional phase right now. This is normal for a city of this age as power transitions to some extent from dynasties to newer immigrants. New blood and a fresh point of view is a good thing, especially if old values are retained and the end product is a fusion of what’s good in both groups and change is not merely made for its own sake. There is room and need for both camps.

So the conclusion of this story is that the young man did not join the fraternity. But he did end up being friends with many of the fraternity members along with friendships he cultivated in a variety of groups. As a Galvestonian he wasn’t able to limit himself to one type of friends. But thanks to his Galveston roots he was able to look past differences and focus on commonalities.

The Galveston Way.

 

Sand Projects

/in , /by

For those of us who went through Hurricane Ike and were part of the rescue and recovery efforts afterwards, it was easy to think that things would never get back to normal.

On Monday afternoon at the Casa Del Mar listening to Kelly de Schaun, Executive Director of the Park Board, talk to a crowd about the potential for three separate re-nourishment projects all within a years’ time made me shake myself. It felt almost too good to be true after all we’ve been through to see forward motion, but it was encouraging to see a person in a leadership position put herself out there and do what she could to make it happen.

The first project is coming up within a month or so. It involves putting over 118,000 cubic yards of sand at the west end of the seawall. The second is scheduled for next fall, about a year from now. It would involve putting 16.5 million cubic yards of sand from 16th to 61st street. And the third, the one that we’re all hoping will happen, is to put sand from 61st street to 103rd street. This third project is probably the most interesting of them all as it would involve creating a beach where there is not one already and the sand comes from a source that is new for Galveston. The sand would come from the Corps of Engineers when they dredge the ship channel. We’d only have to pay the extra cost to move it by Hopper Dredge to the site.

Surfers, fisher folk, Lifeguards, and beach people develop a sense of how sand moves and is affected by ocean processes. Any of these people will confirm what the engineers say about sand replenishment projects. Nature abhors a vacuum. Since there is sand almost all the way down our 33 miles of beach with the exception of the stretch from 61st to 103rd it is essentially a dead spot that sucks sand from other areas. If it is filled, the entire beach benefits. Sand moves up and down our coast line. By the same token, by putting a bunch of sand at the end of the Seawall, the west end will see a subtle increase of sand, even if currently it’s not feasible to directly re-nourish the west end.

The other big deal about the possibility of creating a new beach is a new income stream. The 2008 Angelou Economic Report for every dollar we invest in the beach we get 4 back. Now some say it is much more. Either way, we’ll see an increase in hotel tax, property tax, and beach user fees. In ’93 when the big re-nourishment project was done on the seawall we had to increase Beach Patrol (which went from receiving 1 penny to 1 ½ pennies of hotel tax) and Beach Cleaning budgets to cover the new areas. These are areas that will have to be addressed creatively, but at least we’ll have some increased funding streams to choose from. And the returns will be exponentially increased.