Marine Animals and JG Safety
Hello JG Families!
I am sure many of you have seen the information regarding juvenile sharks off the coast of Long Beach that the news has been covering lately, and I wanted to take a few minutes to address potential concerns. I want to start by saying that the safety of our Junior Lifeguards is our number one priority. While we try to push our Junior Lifeguards athletically, we would never put them in a situation we believed posed a threat to their safety. I also wanted to be sure that you are aware that although there has been much more news coverage regarding the sharks in the area, this pattern is consistent to the population we had in the area at this time last year. That being said, we are taking this situation seriously, and are taking the following preventative steps to ensure the safety of your children during our program.
Each morning, one of our instructors will be doing a patrol of the area on a personal watercraft to ensure that no sharks are present. If any are spotted we will reschedule our activities for the day to keep our JGs out of the water in the area. We are fortunate to have the bay side, which we plan on utilizing if this situation occurs.
Rescue Boats 1 and 3 will be conducting regular patrols of the oceanfront in our area while our program is in session so that we will have continuous monitoring of the area from the water.
Our tower lifeguards have been trained to report any sightings, either from themselves or the public, so that we also have continuous monitoring from the beach.
If any of these units were to report a possible sighting, we would immediately move to alternative activities. We pride ourselves on being adaptable, and we have plenty of alternative activities ready if necessary.
I hope that this answers any questions of concerns that you may have. If you have any further questions I am happy to answer them. We hope that you and your child still would like to participate in our program this summer, but if that is not the case we are willing to issue a refund.
