Only one thing was missing. Instead of the traditional wooden lifeboats, there was a red life buoy and a sign: “No lifeguard. Swim at your own risk. “ Lifeguards are frustratingly rare this year, leaving tens of thousands of the nation’s swimming pools closed and beaches unguarded, and the public shunned by the onset of the American summer. In Milwaukee County, where temperatures have already reached the 1980s and students have completed their academic year, a network of public swimming pools is more closed than open. At least five facilities have been closed and four swimming pools will be open to the public, officials said. On the popular beaches of Lake Michigan, swimmers have to navigate on their own in crashing waves and dangerous waves. Recruitment woes are rampant across the country: Officials in Austin, Texas, say they have not yet found willing lifeguards for half of the 750 positions they hope to fill. In Cincinnati, recruitment was so limited that only eight of the city’s 23 pools could be opened. “It feels like an unsolvable problem,” said Jim Tarantino, deputy director of Milwaukee County Parks, which manages the city’s swimming pools, for the closure. “We are as devastated as the community.” City officials and industry experts point to a crash of factors that are causing a shortage of lifeguards. The low unemployment rate has given young people many job options. Due to the Covid-related limitations during the pandemic, swimming lessons and lifeguard lessons were frequently suspended for parts of the last two years, opening holes in an already weak training pipeline. And employers choose from a smaller group of applicants: In states like Wisconsin, there are simply fewer teens than in previous decades, as residents increasingly choose to have smaller families. “It’s the worst we’ve ever seen,” said Bernard J. Fisher II, director of health and safety at the American Lifeguard Association, who added that one-third of the country’s beaches and pools were affected by the scarcity. Even for swimming pools that remain open, many cancel swimming lessons and instruct their trainers to work as lifeguards, complicating the issue of training in the future. “If we do not continue to train young lifeguards all summer, it will be a long time before we get out of it,” said Fisher. Desperate for help, cities and private employers have put privileges and increased hourly wages. Six Flags St. Louis has offered up to $ 18 an hour to lifeguards and promised a $ 500 bonus. In Grand Rapids, Mich., The parks department covered the cost of lifeguard training this year, helping to attract enough applicants to staff its pools. In New Orleans, known for its rainy, wet summers, lifeguards are paid $ 15.91 an hour, a jump from just under $ 12 last year, said Larry Barabino Jr., chief executive of New Orleans Recreation Development. Commission, the organization that manages the city’s parks and pools. “We were on the news, we were on social media, we were on the radio,” Barabino said. But it has not worked. Only five of the city’s 13 seasonal swimming pools will be open this summer. And Mr. Barabino worries that teens will have fewer leisure options, especially when their families can not afford expensive private camps and vacations. “The challenge for some young people is, will it be possible for them to walk in the pool of their neighborhood?” he said. “And the answer is no. “They will not have the ability to swim every day.” The Austin public swimming pool network is slowly coming back to life as recruitment increases and Aaron Levine, an aquatic track supervisor, says he hopes the department will do better than last year in achieving its goals. But he worries that the lack of lifeguards at the national level will affect the safety of swimmers, especially for children who do not know the water well. “It’s hard to watch,” he said. “It’s 100 points in Texas. “If they do not come to the wrecked pool in their neighborhood, they will find a body of water somewhere.” Many unused swimming pools across the country show signs of deterioration, with weeds sprouting in cracks in the concrete. The Washington Park pool in Milwaukee is one of them, with its green diving boards hovering over an empty pool and a low building next door locked and closed. Mike Ithier, who lives a few blocks away, sat on his front porch one late afternoon and lamented that the local pool – surrounded by a water-drained fence – was not accessible to neighborhood children. He has lived in the city for decades and remembers his own days as a teenager in the 1970s: When he was 14, he got a job as a lifeguard in this very pool. “It was beautiful then,” he said. “You rode your bike there, checked your bike – they watched it for you – and paid 25 cents to swim.” A short drive from Bradford Beach on Lake Michigan, where the sign warned visitors that lifeguards would not be on duty, some Milwaukee residents said the absence was a loss for a favorite ritual. Tyesha Shareef, 29, was on the beach taking a break from her real estate job, spending a quiet time watching the water from her car. He has fond memories of coming to the beach as a child, he said, when lifeguards were numerous and crowded. “I remember it was so wonderful then,” she said, adding that although her 2-year-old daughter could swim, she would not want to bring her into the water without a lifeguard, knowing how quickly a child can escape even more. alert parent. “I just do not think it’s safe,” said Sharef. “It’s not the same.”
