Lifeguards work hard to keep Milwaukee pools open despite ongoing shortage

The holiday week means more free time and parents looking for safe and fun activities for their kids.

"It's very convenient for the community, you know, to just be here right now at this point in time," said Maritza Collazo.

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Maritza Collazo loves taking her family to Pelican Cove in Kosciuszko Park on the South side, one of the aquatic facilities run by Milwaukee County.

“It's the only, closest pool that we have towards this area, and it would really be a shame, it would suck if it was closed," said Collazo.

This is one of seven pools county-wide that are open for the season.

In order to open all of the County's aquatic facilities this summer, they needed to hire 250 lifeguards.

Watch: Lifeguards explain how they're keeping pools open despite an ongoing shortage in Milwaukee County:

Ongoing lifeguard shortage impacts Milwaukee County pools

Assistant Parks Director Andrea Wallace says right now, they have 136.

"There still are some pools that remained closed based on experience and based on our lifeguard corps and the numbers that we were able to recruit," said Wallace.

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This was despite the heavy recruitment and hiring incentives the Parks Department offered, including raising the hourly rate, bonuses, and extra training.

With just over half of the lifeguard goal they had this summer, Wallace says they are stepping up to meet the county's needs.

"All of our teams have put in a lot of work in ensuring that we are still able to allow our communities to have access to water, with improving that swim ability within the community. So, this is a huge accomplishment for us and our team," said Wallace.

Iker Velasco is on duty at Pelican Cove this season.

"It's a good way to meet new people and learn good skills for life. So, I figured I'd give it a try and I loved it after the first year, so I kept coming back,” said Velasco.

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He says the shortage is having a big impact.

"Especially at a smaller pool like this, we only have 15 lifeguards here in total, so we really have to stretch ourselves thin," said Velasco.

Velasco encourages people to consider becoming a lifeguard and hopes to work with an even bigger team next summer.

"We work a lot of hours, we're all doing stuff we can to make sure, even with the shortage of lifeguards, we're able to run this pool for all these people here,” said Velasco.

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