>> I'll call this meeting to order.
ms. Fasone, please call roll.
>> council member coburn?
>> yes.
>> councilman register?
>> yes, ma'am.
>> vice mayor jarman?
>> yes.
>> council member casto?
>> yes.
>> mayor tettemer?
>> first up is a presentation on
the beach flag system by chief morgan.
did we get the projector working?
last minute I.t. Work, good job.
>> mayor, council, I'm going to
let director paul do the presentation
today since this is his expertise and
division.
>> I appreciate the opportunity to
engage with you on how to make our
beaches safer, so with that, I'll
turn it over to director paul.
>> director paul?
>> mayor, council, good the afternoon.
so, my name's [inaudible] paul, city
of panama beach fire rescue.
I've been a lifeguard for over a
decade, a fireman for a little longer,
just rolling through the slide.
there we go.
so, my process of how I judge how
hazardous the rip currents are every
day is that every morning, I visit the
shore line, I drive up and down the
beach every morning from monday to
monday every day.
I visit various beaches, depending on
the conditions, the wind and what the
direction of the swell, how
everything's coming in, our tide
shift, I check out various spots.
our flag system is a standardized
system.
it's created by the international
lifesaving federation and then the
united states lifesaving association
which is the governing body for open
water lifeguard adopted that system.
and they include it into our training
for our water open lifeguards.
the first flag is a yellow flag, a
medium hazard, this pertains to rip
currents, we base our flags off of rip
current, not so much wave action.
single red flag means it's a high rip
hazard, double red means the water's
closed to the public.
purple is marine pests such as jelly
fish.
all of this is directed all of the
life safety federation's website for
how they define the flags and their
use, and also the pictures how they're
depicted, the double red with a single
red and a flag depicted beneath that.
green flags is their statement on
green flags.
in some areas of the u.s., green flags
are flown the indicate calm or mild
conditions.
international lifesaving federation
considered this carefully and decided
not to adopt the green flag.
the primary reason is the fact that
wills always a potential hazard
present and that the view that it is
best to notify people when conditions
are unusually changing, rather than
suggest they are ever completely safe.
rip currents can form anywhere at any
time and that has a lot to do with our
sand, our sand is real fine and loose,
as waste buildup and hit sand bar, it
creates deep spots, and the picture on
the left here, you see a green flag
flying and you see pretty calm
conditions.
what most people would generally call
a green flag day.
on the picture to your right, you have
pretty much mirrored the same
conditions here, you have a shallow
sand bar, a deep spot and then a
shallow sand bar on the other side,
you can see those with waves breaking
across the sand bar.
just to assess rip current wills
always be present and there's always a
hazard, this picture was taken
immediately after our crews entered
the water and rescued a ten year-old
boy so, they made a rescue and a
concerning note about this picture,
even though our crews entered the
water, made the rescue, people still
walked right by us and got back into
the rip current.
so, this is our guideline on yellow
flags, I mean, I'm sorry, on the flag
system about how we work it every
morning and it's guideline.
we can move around with it the best we
can and we always try to fly to the
highest hazard in the beach.
every morning I collaborate with my
counterpart at the sheriff's office,
they have a surf patrol that works the
far end of the county on the east and
west and I call him every morning and
we talk about conditions, the weather,
we talk about the tide, what the
tide's doing.
we talk about staffing in case we need
like mutual aid resources requested,
things like that.
him and I work together on the best
flag call for the entire island.
our coverage, we staff lifeguards that
fill city pier at private partnership
from april 1 to september 31, we have
roving patrols spanning 9.6 miles.
in 2023, our lifeguards were able to
complete 237 rescues, 2542 public
assists, a public assists where the
lifeguard proactively entered the
water and prevented a rescue from
happening, so prevented the emergency
in the first place.
the preventative actions, 172 thousand
51, that's where the lifeguard noticed
somebody was setting up their beach,
like their beach towel or their tent
umbrella in front of a rip or walking
towards a rip and he decided to
proactively grab those people and
moved them to a safer place to be.
37 medicals and 6073 calls for service.
every morning I'm checking the weather
forecast, checking the surf forecast.
I always check the tide charts and I
collaborate with noaa, the
national weather service, and I
utilize the noaa's five day rip
current, noaa always putting out --
they're gauging their data off of
buoys and whether to kind of forecast
the rip currents in your area, so I
always take that into account.
I take the tide charts into account,
the winds,, but still every morning
you have to go down to the shore line
and put eyes to it.
our lifeguards every morning get to
the city pier, sometimes we go to the
other parts of the water to get into
the water and have a physical test in
the rip currents, we try to see how
strong they're pulling at that time of
day and we try to gauge where we'll be
closer to the end of the day.
this is a multiagency collaborative
effort here, we all work together,
panama city beach fire rescue beach
safety, bay county sheriff's office,
bay county emergency services from
orange beach, gulf shores alabama all
the way to us is the emerald coast, we
talk together about if there's a major
storm or something in the gulf moving
in, we try to collaborate our efforts
together, work together.
noaa, national weather service and bay
county emergency services.
how we notify the community is the
major thing is alert bay.
we post our flag conditions which will
retain more to what our rip currents
are doing on the day at our website,
social media and local news media.
alert bay has really proven to be the
greatest asset tool for communication
to the community but it requires
people to subscribe to the text abert.
if you subscribe to the test alert,
text pcb flags to 888777, every
morning you'll get a text alert to our
flag system and what it's doing for the
day.
a little bit about rip currents is
that how they work here, you've got
two shallow sand bases and you'll have
a deep spot, as waves spill over on to
the sand bank, it moves the sand away
creating that.
as waves wash into store, the water
washing up to the shore line and
recedes back into the sea, it's going
the focus on that deep spot.
you have to watch your tide shift,
anything over a foot drives concern
for me, as your tide shifts down
throughout the day, if you're at high
tide and gauge your currents in the
morning, you have this less space
across the shallow sand bar but still
have the same amount of volume coming
in, so your rip currents are going to
get stronger throughout the day and
like I said, rip currents can form
anywhere at any time.
so, that's all I have for that.
do you have questions for me?
>> director paul, how often does a
flag change during the day?
>> right, so we always try to flag to
the highest hazard in the area, so say
like more over to the beach, it may be
yellow flag conditions but over here
we may have developed rip currents, we
try to flag to that, you may have a
single red so we'll flag uniformity
and consistency, we'll flag the same
flag across the 18 miles of beach for
the whole island.
when we fly a flag and for me, if we
start getting a few water rescue calls
and they're consistent and pretty
close together, that's telling me that
the rip currents are now a little more
developed and the conditions that are
present are beyond the capabilities of
the individuals on the shore and the
people in the water, so in order to
prevent a drowning, prevent an
incident and prevent anything bad from
happening for our first responders,
we'll put up double reds.
>> okay.
so, you know how frequent because I
noticed that's been happening a decent
amount recently.
>> I don't have a number for you how
frequent it is.
>> it was a surprise question.
>> you always have -- I'm always
looking out for that in case we do
need to upgrade.
>> one other question, do you think we
should change our warning signage if
we're never going to fly a
green flag?
>> I think our information needs to be
consistent.
the information that the's along the
boardwalks and anything that's posted
is very important to me.
I think it all should be consistent
even how we fly the flags.
when you fly a double red flag, you
should have a sign red with something
beneath it, we shouldn't mix the two,
it needs to stay consistent.
>> questions from council?
>> yeah, I want to clarify one thing
with the alert bay warnings, isn't
there a geofence when you go to double
red that you're not required to be
signed up for alert bay to get that
alert?
>> I believe they do have a geofence
capability but I'm not in charge of
that.
>> are we utilizing that?
I believe we are.
I have seen a lot of my guests and I
would assume at the hotel that are
getting that alert around the pool
deck, they're inside of that geofenced
area, does anybody have an answer for
that?
>> tdc sends that out for the
geofencing, if you're in that area,
you will get that alert.
>> whether you're flying a flag in the
morning, you're taking into account
the coastal sea breeze pick-up in the
afternoon that we always are
accustomed to?
>> I always try to, I try to make the
educated flag call for the information
that's presented to me at the time
which is a weather forecast, I take
that with a grain of salt and then
what I see in front of me in the
moment.
>> it's time consuming for you guys to
change how many flags do we have
inside the city limit, flag poles?
>> the city of panama city beach
has 28, we change 26.
there's a few at the county pier that
the county guards take care of, so we
take care of 26 flag poles.
>> how long do you say it would take
your team to change those and upgrade
those?
>> about 45 minutes.
>> okay.
45 minutes is a long time when rip
currents develop, alright, fantastic,
thank you, I appreciate everything you
do, thank you.
>> thank you.
>> is there a possible rip current in
this area, I wouldn't want to say
affirmative?
>> the flag system the great secondary
tool utilized by the lifeguard and
lifeguards use local swim flags to
mark rip currents, it's like a no
swimmer flag, we'll go to one side of
the rip, post it, go to the other side
and post it.
as we're doing our preventative
actions, we'll point to that area and
say no swimming between those two
flags. Sh
>> we're doing that now?
>> at guarded beaches.
if you start carrying out these flags,
they could be costly, as you stake
them and put them down, they end up
being stolen, they turn into great
souvenirs, and each flag is about 100
bucks, each flag.
>> thank you.
>> do you see rips form more prevalent
during a certain time of the year?
it's constant?
>> yeah, rip currents can form
anywhere at any time and it's all
dependent on the conditions that are
leading up to that day and in our area
along the emerald coast, our rip
currents can linger.
that we'll fly a few days of double
red flags, the first day will be
pretty rough, as the conditions are ce
receding and calming down, we'll keep
our double reds up and then even
slowly downgraded to a single rip and
then from there because our rip
currents will linger and the hazard
that -- the issue that's really
prevalent is that when people visit
our shore line, they'll see the surf,
it looks really calm, it looses very
inviting, it's clear blue skies and
looks really nice but the rip currents
are still wringing.
you really only need about three to
five mile an hour winds coming out of
the south, southwest, southeast to
really power a rip current.
our rip currents are formed by wave
action that obverses sand away out of
the shallow sand bars and make deep
spots but as the wind pushes the
waves, as the winds creates these
waves and pushes the water up to
the shore line, it recedes back out so
your rip currents will always be
working, they do work off of a time
interval, so your rip currents are
always going to be working until the
wind dies or shifts.
>> makes sense.
>> you see less rip currents with a
north wind than you would a wind up
coming out of the south pushing water
up on to the beach?
>> so, the north wind will shift from
the north and lay the surf down and it
will look flat on that green flag day,
you would probably have a north wind
that makes the water look that flat
but this's still a little bit of a --
you can't notice it, there's still
a swell, there's water still moving,
there's still currents moving, so even
then on a north wind day, your rip
currents will still work and on those
days, the calmer days are the ones we
typically get most of our rescues.
>> the north wind is lying down the
first 500 yards of the beach that we
can see, and most of our north winds
are seasonally doing the wintertime.
>> we'll get north winds even in the
summer in the morning and as the
temperature over the land and over the
sea changes, it will shift back on to
land, you will have a sea breeze.
>> okay.
>> darryl, just so the public will
know and I think most of you do know
this, but we have three public places
on the beach where lifeguards are
provided the city pier, the county
pier and rick seltzer park and there's
other privateer resorts here, holiday
inn and boardwalks participating in
our public/private partnership.
is that correct?
is that the only -- I don't think
state park provides lifeguards either,
do they?
>> the city of panama beach staffs
lifeguards at the pier, we have a
private partnership with broad walk
that goes from april to september.
the county does staff lifeguards at
the county pier and at the rick
seltzer park.
>> so, you use your rovers to cover
the areas in between those on four
wheelers and how many guards do you
currently have?
>> right, so on patrol, I don't
consider any of those roving patrol on
a guarded beach, you can't --
>> it takes too long to get to them.
>> we have nine full time lifeguards,
that includes myself and six seasonal.
>> in your opinion, do you have enough
lifeguards to do your job effectively?
>> no, he doesn't.
>> what was that?
>> no, you don't.
>> I'm not trying to put you on the
spot.
have you guys done a plan, I was
talking to ben with the tdc and he
suggested the city and the county do a
plan to let him know and the tdc is
contributing some more money, a couple
of these guys up here sit on that
board and they are going to give us
some more money for lifeguards but he
did mention a plan, so he would know
what you guys being the professionals
are recommending, that he would be
able to provide all of them one year
but maybe that's a goal that we could
reach.
has there been a plan done that you're
aware of recently, I know back in the
day, they did one and they didn't go
through with it, it was too expensive
to provide.
it was tourists mostly that were
drowning and the council at the time
didn't feel like it was fair to tax
with an ad valorem tax the local
people that are not drowning, it's --
from the data that I saw that you guys
collected, it's 90% tourists that are
drowning, it's not local people.
>> sure, with our transient
population, the real burden upon the
lifeguard is we're preventative in
nature, we're proactive.
we don't -- we try to prevent
the rescue or the emergency from
happening in the first place so we're
trying to talk to as many people as we
can, 2023, we talked to 1.1 million,
with a staff -- at that time, it was 8
including me, we talked to a lot of
people.
there are various plans that could work
for the city, different methods,
different tactics, we don't have to
reinvent the wheel I believe but,
yeah, and the presence of a trained
lifeguard, you have a one in 18
million chance of drowning in front of
a properly trained united states
lifesaving association accredited
lifeguard.
>> how many feet apart do they
recommend the lifeguards?
>> the industry standard is every 8th
of a mile, but even with that industry
standard, that's not set by osha,
that's not sent my nfpa, that's what
all the other united states life
association accredited agencies, we
all collaborate together across the
country and we talk about our staffing
and that is just the number that we
found works.
a lifeguard every 8th of a mile.
for our shore line, we can implore
different tactics and we can implore
maybe a wider spacing that could work
for us.
even the agencies that try to meet
that standard can't maintain that
standard of a lifeguard every 8th of a
mile.
>> maybe you may know, do we have a
plan, an updated plan that we could
get to dan or you could direct staff
to try to take the old one and dust it
off and we have a lot more people here
now.
maybe we need more, but he did ask for
a plan today when I was talking to
him, so maybe we can try to get him
one.
I'm asking why too many questions.
>> I think that's worth discussing in
a little bit.
director paul, can you talk about the
importance of a lifeguard beach versus
the roving patrols you're doing now
and what the difference is, the way
the lifeguards act at a lifeguard
beach versus roving patrols?
>> sure, like I said before, the very
nature of a lifeguard is to be
proactive and preventative, to first
make contact with individuals
visioning the beach, being that person
on the sand with the community
outreach that's going to warn you of a
rip current, educate you on what a rip
current is.
tell you where the safe place to swim
is.
as far as roving patrol, our
lifeguards, when staffing permits,
we have one roving patrol for
the entire city proper.
that puts a lot of work on that one
lifeguard to make a lot of public
contacts and a lot of preventative
actions and like I said, rip currents
could form anywhere at any time and if
you google image our shore line a lot,
you'll see rips, rips, rips, so that
makes up for a tough day.
I'm sorry, what was the rest of your
question.
what's the difference.
>> yeah.
>> long story short, I can talk to you
all day about that.
the lifeguards --
>> we have about ten minutes.
>> the lifeguard's going to be there
to be proactive, not like a reactive
service, we're very proactive.
you shouldn't see rescues at a
lifeguard beach, you should only see
public assistance.
>> lifeguards at beaches is a
different animal than the roving
patrols we have now, the roving
patrols seem like a bandage, I
don't want to put words in your mouth,
we're doing what we can with them.
I've seen a patrol go by, tell someone
to get out of the water, do some
education, as soon as they leave,
they're back in.
>> yes.
that's currently our struggle.
>> yeah.
>> every day.
>> are there any hot spots or any
places on the beach that have a decent
amount more population than others
that would maybe make good options for
additional lifeguard beaches?
>> yes.
I've printed out a heat map off of our
analytics software through watchtower,
it's a great software, it's tailored
made specifically for lifeguards and
it uploads all your stats to the usla
it's great and it prints you out a
heat map on everything you do, but I
printed that out, it was pretty much
the whole shore line was red.
we're everywhere, yeah.
>> okay.
and then one more before I toss it off.
if I am correct in understanding our
flag system is almost entirely based
on rip currents, was that a correct
understanding of the statement?
>> yes.
>> so, should we maybe change --
because it talks about high surf or
strong currents and if we're based
centrally on rip currents, I
understand this is standard signage
that we're pulling but we don't have a
green flag, and it's based on rip
currents, maybe focusing the signage
on rip currents rather than this
generic language may make sense.
>> right, so the definitions were
based off of the international
lifesaving federations definition,
they set the definition, and the usla
makes it available for lifeguard
training for our lifeguards.
they haven't adopted the green flag,
so, the usla mirrors that statement,
so we mirror the usla because we're
accredited through them.
as far as changing the verbiage, I
really stress that the information
that's present needs to be consistent
across the board even how you fly the
flags, e.g. Needs to be consistent.
I've also noted -- I've spent a day
watching people walk down the beach.
I just face the access and I watch
them walk and our sand is very unique
in a way that it's just unique, it's
not like any other sand anywhere else
on a beach, so when people first come
in contact with our beach, they're
looking down at their feet because
they're trying to keep their footing
or they're amazed by our sand, but our
signs are up like this but their eyes
are looking down and our flags are
really high.
we need our flags high so you can see
them because they're spaced out,
right, but usually you'll see like the
dad carrying all the stuff and he's
got his eye on a spot on the shore
line he's trying to get all these bags
too and then everybody else is looking
down at the sand so they tend to miss
the signs, they tend to miss it and
even you'll get to a point where it's
sign pollution, you get too many signs
and the most important sign, the rip
current sign is sometimes really low to
the sand and even dune grass is
covering it, so the sign that you
really need them to pay attention to
is not prominent in the field of view.
>> I have a couple more.
>> yes, council member coburn and then
councilman register.
>> yes, based on your relationships
with other people that are doing your
job in other communities, are there
any best practices we could adopt that
would work for us that come to mind?
>> [inaudible] to assess your shore
line, assess your area and operate in
the manner that's best for your area,
so if you go to -- if you visit a
beach, if you visit somewhere else in
the country or even down south
florida, conditions could be greatly
different there, specific hazards
could be greatly different there than
what we face here so, there's probably
a few things that you can pull from,
like maybe some policies but we really
need to stay specific and tailored for
our area because we're still unique in
a lot of ways here.
>> thank you, I think we just need to
think out of the box here a little bit
and see if we can't come up with some
strategies that we can employ that
would help your folks do their job.
>> sure.
>> councilman register?
>> in regards to changing the signage
possibly, I know we still have
undertow and wave height
that doesn't have to do with a rip
current, is that part of the signage,
don't we have some undertow or we have
wave heights that can knock people or
no?
>> so, undertow is just a name for --
>> for a rip current.
>> there's nothing out there that will
grab you and [inaudible]
>> sounds to me like the mayor has a
great idea to uniform our signage to
make it based around rip currents.
>> I'm always for simple, concise
uniform signage.
>> one of the things I'm hearing you
say is preventative actions, short of
a fully funded lifeguard program,
preventative actions would be the next
best step to prevent drowning?
do we need more preventative
actions?
>> sure.
>> more education, more preventative
action.
>> yes, that's all great.
>> smoke alarms, sprinkler systems and
fire detector systems save more lives
than firemen.
security cameras lead to more
successful prosecutions than attorneys
and police officers.
no flag sign, refrigerator magnet, tv
commercial, stood on the shore line
and made a public contact with
somebody and said don't swim here,
there's a rip current, and let me
educate you and point it out to them,
explain the science behind it.
what our lifeguards, how our
lifeguards speak and explain things to
people is very important to me and
we train on that, how are we going to
explain what we're going to explain,
how are we going to tell them where to
go and where to move.
>> that takes time, right, each
interaction takes time.
>> at a guarded beach when you have
backup, when you have overwatch with a
partner, lifeguards work best in a
team, not really so much as single,
like when ld have a roving patrol,
we try to put a partner with
that if the vehicle will accommodate a
second person simply because we
learned that lifeguards work best as a
team.
>> it does, yeah.
>> last one.
from your metrics, less rescues at our
guarded beaches?
>> yes, that is our standard, there
shouldn't be rescues at a guarded
beach.
>> and you would attribute the fact
that we have less need for rescues at
guarded beaches due to the
preventative actions that they're able
to take there?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> you good?
okay.
director paul, thank you.
>> thank you.
>> okay.
so, we are tight on time for this
meeting, we have to start the next
meeting at 5:00.
we're going to have a discussion here
I know there were some folks who had
reached out ahead of time to do public
comment, I'm going to allow a few
public comments on this subject right
now.
the rest of the public comments can
happen during public comment period in
the next meeting, it will be pretty
quick, we have a short presentation,
but we just -- the way of running this
meeting, we got to end this one on
time so we start this next one for
legal purposes.
so, for the folks who want to have
public comment, could you raise your
hand.
okay.
I know mr. Hill, go ahead.
and I'm going to prioritize people
who have not recently spoken to the
city council on beach safety issues.
if we have someone new here who's
providing new information, they're
going to be prioritized.
>> thank you, I will take just a
minute.
I'm here on behalf of the rotary club
in bay county, both in panama city,
panama city beach and lynne haven.
thank you for listening to me, mayor,
you are right, we need to think
outside of the box.
we don't need to just think, we need
to have action and thoughts and
prayers for victims of drowning are
not enough, we have to do more.
the rotary clubs in bay county stand
ready to partner with you guys with the
professionals that are involved with
these rescues, something called public
rescue tubes, I've got a handout, I
would love to give you guys and show
you, these tubes are already in place
and over 700 locations around u.s. And
canada.
there have been 400 known rescues by
private citizens.
they're similar to what a lifeguard
does use.
there are 16 tubes installed in nevar,
and there's no loss of life where
those tubes have been installed.
[inaudible] has four tubes, pensacola
has five tubes.
these buoys if you will are placed
along the cross overs, the rotary club
here in bay county is ready to fund
this program.
there are foundations, there are
businesses that would stand behind
this to keep when someone's
destructive or whatever to replace
those tubes.
one of the things that people are
mindful of and fearful of is liability
and risk and I can tell you that I've
talked to a number of attorneys and
they say that risk is very minimal but
the second approach that I think this
body and our county can get behind is
is to change the good samaritan laws
in the state of florida with a very
minor change.
the state of hawaii has install these
tubes and they did a good samaritan
law change.
the packet that I'm going to provide
you today has the florida language and
it has the hawaiian language and it's
very simple.
it's very simple.
it protects the private citizens that
are partnered with you guys to provide
lifeguards and it protects the
property owners and the person trying
to go out to rescue someone, we're
not advocating people to go into
dangerous waters but the truth is if
you invite someone down here and they
go into the water and they get in
trouble, most likely you're going to
go in and try to rescue them and we've
seen it time and time again when
people go to rescue someone and they
themselves end up drowning so these
tubes can provide a backup, an
assistance until help can get there
and so I'm asking and imploring you to
check this out.
the rotary clubs here in bay county
stand ready to partner with you to
make this happen.
>> thank you, mr. Hill.
we only have time for one more, so who
else was -- mr. -- is it mr. White?
>> mayor?
>> yes.
>> may we get a copy of the handout
now.
>> I think that's reasonable.
>> in the meantime, mr. Davis, in
terms of liability, could you clarify
what city liability would be for these
tubes?
>> for providing the tubes?
>> yes.
>> I mean I think the liability is
very minimal.
as mr. Hill said, liability on the
rescuer, that's a different analysis,
for the city's liability, I think it
would be fairly minimal.
>> okay, alright.
>> my name's allen white, I'm from
panama city, born and raised here.
thank you for your time.
we've been working on a program for a
little over a decade for the very
reason we're here today.
I can't get into a lot of detail on
it because we just don't have enough
time.
one thing I would like to say is that
we've researched rip current drowning
around the world from england all up
and down the east, west coast.
we understand how the rip current
works and professor rick stone did a
study on rip currents and what the
beaches had to add to one of the rip
currents are natural sand bars, if
you're born and raised here, you can
walk 100 feet off shore, you would be
in ankle deep water or if you go 100
yards off shore and you would be in
knee deep water.
since dredging and [inaudible] it's
changed everything, the tide breaks
are hitting the shore line.
there's not a natural protection like
there used to be, but we have a system
we've been developing that uses led
lights, she was mentioning thinking
out of the box.
if you want to see the flag system
working better, put it out into the
water where you can see it, you have
40 thousand people on the beach and
everybody 's looking at the water.
we have an indicator with an led
light, an emergency camera system, if
you get in trouble and don't have a
cell phone, the minute you touch that
button on that walkway and every
access points have these lights, when
you're walking down the walkway, the
subliminal message will already be
red, yellow green, whatever, so now
you're walking towards the beach and
you're getting that led light telling
you what signal it is.
and if you get in trouble, most people
call, we have 911, I don't know
where we're at, we don't know where
we're at, we're in the middle of 40
thousand people, we don't know where
we're at.
the minute they touch that light and
open that light emergency box, it's
like a fire alarm, they pick it up
instantly, the signal goes to the
gentlemen on the beach, on their
ipads, their smart phones, the system
changes the lighting system and this
system has a verbal command.
in other words, they can communicate
with the people on the beach through
this system on their ipad or their
smart phone.
they can change the system part of the
beach, on the beach and the
information coming from noaa from the
shipping land buoys is instant, it's
combining into their monitors, so
there's several things.
we can talk about this forever and we
changed the law, [inaudible] wrote the
amendment.
>> we've changed the law and it's
changed and now we can use the system
in the state of florida.
>> thank you, I appreciate you.
okay.
, we only have about 10, 15 minutes
left of this meet, I'm going to cut
public comment there.
we're going to have to move
public comment for this to the
non-agenda comments for the next
meeting which will be starting here in
just about 20 minutes.
I wanted to give the council time to
discuss our options.
for one, I am really interested in
seeing what we can do to add lifeguard
beaches.
I think -- I've heard the great work
the tdc's recently done in terms of
finding an extra couple of hundred
thousand.
>> 360.
>> an extra 360.
>> that would go to us.
>> that would go to panama city beach
for this purpose.
I think it would be worth looking into
-- we only have one taker for our
public/private partnership and that's
because we asked them to fund 100%
including capital.
maybe we could consider looking at
subsidizing that public/privateer
partnership or taking some of the
public beach accesses and providing a
lifeguard beach there, it won't do the
entire island.
that would be a nice way to expand
that money but I'll let the rest of
the council go through comments and we
can see if we can fit two rounds in.
>> absolute will you.
>> do you want to start?
>> sure, I like both of your ideas.
I think if we covered the capital cost
for setting up a lifeguard at a
resort, that would save them some
money but then they would still be
paying the salary for the personnel
that would be stationed there and I do
-- perhaps we look at the beach access
and we pick some out and we make those
lifeguard beaches but still have
rovers.
I wouldn't want to take away from
having those rovers because I think
those are very important.
but I think those are two really good
ideas.
>> okay.
thank you, council member.
councilman register?
>> I agree with
you, I think those are both great
ideas but what I'm hearing and this is
manager that's kept me up at night
when people are drowning.
I worked on this beach since I was 14
working on the sand behind calipso,
no one drowned on that beach and the
reason is because I cared enough to
tell peel and take preventative
action, so I've been meeting with
beach service representatives,
[inaudible], james vaught, james jones,
some other endorsee up and down the
beach, I think we have 75-100 vendors
and I have met with dan roe at the tdc
several times regarding maybe a beach
ambassador program where we can
utilize boots on the ground.
they are not lifeguard certified, I
don't expect them to be, but if
[inaudible].
( site buffering ).
>> this is right there all the
time, I would like to see us take some
time to implement a beach ambassador
program where the tdc pays those
individuals to help us market our
beaches.
it ups the level of service for
residents, tourists, everybody that
visits our beaches.
it gives them an opportunity to feel
safe and understand.
some people, I hear people all the
time, I walk the floors in my building
all the time and look out, still
double red flag so we do see it and
that system does work but it's a lot
more effective when you're
communicating it and if I can get 100
more people in the bay county telling
people and helping you guys and I
think you had a number on your slide,
you had 172 thousand 51 preventative
actions.
that's a lot of actions and how many
people do you have on your staff?
nine?
how many including you?
nine people.
if I can give you 100 more in the
county, I can get a lot more
preventative actions.
they're not lifeguards, again, they're
not lifeguards, I worked on the beach,
we had to be lifeguard certified back
in the day.
I want to collect all these guys
together, and they're willing to do it, it's
something I'm passionate about and
something I like to see done and we
don't have to use the dollars for that.
marketing dollars, it is, if that's
something you guys are interested in,
I rhinitis good idea and I would love
to remove restrictions on double red
flags where they can go across
property lines sh we have atv's and
jet skis we can use, let these guys
cross property eyes if they can make a
preventative action and save a life.
>> thank you.
>> I support that 110% and using new
marketing money, it would be a lot
more money than what we're getting and
getting a lot more bodies and I love
the rotary's idea of putting those
rescue tubes down there.
I also was a lifeguard, I started my
career as a city lifeguard back in the
70's and that's a tough job you guys
are doing, very tough.
and the ones that we were able to save
I remember were the ones that had what
we call back then a three dollar
inflatable float and by the time we
got down there, it would take five to
ten minutes to get there.
if they didn't have some type of
flotation device for them, that was a
recovery effort at that time, it
wasn't saving anybody, but I remember
one particular day, I didn't count
them when we got down there, I was in
awe on how people were out there
afterwards.
it was over with, I think they said
there was 17 people and one family
were out there and had gotten trapped
out there, two at a time, five at a
time, it started with two kids and they
all went in and there was a real bad
rip behind the gulf crest, and so they
had five or six of those different
colored air mattresses and this was
back in the late 70's, and so we took
a rope to them, we had 300 feet of
rope and we got two or three times we
got out there to them and ended up
getting them all in.
two or three went to the hospital, you
know, but they survived and we rescued
them but what slavered those people
was they had a flotation device and
the people that had the state of mine
to get another float before they went
in the water because if you ever go in
the water after somebody, don't go
without some type of flotation device.
what I want to propose and I talked to
cole about it and it's out of the box
like mary was saying, I propose that
on a single red flag day, that we
require the swimmers, the people going
in the gulf to have some type of
flotation device.
I've been watching that, like darryl
said, I watch them go down there, they
have it with them, they have boogie
boards, floats, noodles, any of those
things will keep people alive long
enough if they caught in one until
somebody can get there and not do a
recovery, it can be a happy ending if
they have some type of flotation
device and that's thinking way outside
of the box because I know if kohl's
been able to find any other city that
does that.
over the years, people have asked me,
just make them wear life jackets,
nobody will die.
and I said, well, it's not that easy.
people don't want to come to the beach
and wear a life jacket but that's the
truth.
if they would, then nobody would drown.
but anyhow, I do think that that's
worth trying and it may not work but
we got to do something.
everybody says you have to do
something, we're trying to get more
lifeguards and tdc is stepping up with
more money which is great and this
ambassador program and the rotary, the
public, we need to do something and I
don't know if this is directed to
counsel at this point to have some
dialogue about it, I don't know if we
could do that but that would be my
suggestion, we're kind of at a point
where we need toe do something.
>> councilman, I was going to let
everyone talk and then kind of get
direction if that works.
>> perfect.
>> vice mayor, do you think you can do
it in two minutes.
>> I'll be really quick.
I think we've come up with some good
ideas.
we definitely get with the tdc as well
on the tubes, I've been looking at
some ai software that can complement
lifeguards.
I like the ambassador program, it can
free up some of the lifeguards to do
more rescue and not have to be the
preventative nature if we've got 100
extra people out there doing it, so
that's it.
>> okay.
I heard about five ideas, let me
summarize them.
one is investigating a subsidized
program including maybe potentially
subsidizing capital costs.
I personally would also like to see
subsidizing the actual lifeguards for
creating lifeguards on peps, enhancing
our public/private partnership.
the beach ambassador program,
investigating if there's any order --
ordinances or anything that we need to
do this.
the funding would come from tdc there.
if there's anything we need to do from
a city ordinance side there.
rescue tubes, I think it would be
great to work with rotary and I think
a few people here were interested in
rescue tubes, what are the options in
terms of mounting, can we have a
partnerships there, that's the third
one.
councilman casto's idea on
requiring flotation devices on single
reds and the information we got, we had
14 cases of drowning on single reds,
more than double reds at this point,
so I think that makes sense to
investigate that and then finally vice
mayor jarman's ai software.
>> I'm waiting for phone calls back.
>> so, does it make sense to get
options on those five?
>> and could we also get more
information from mr. White over here.
>> mr. White, yes.
>> so, those five plus, drew, if you
could reach out to mr. White and have
him talk to chief morgan, alright.
did we make it?
I think we made it, okay.
the public comment for -- I know a lot
of you wanted to do public comment on
this beach safety, just do it at the
next meeting which is going to start
here in about five minutes, okay.
that's it.
this meeting is adjourned.
( meeting adjourned ).