PANAMA CITY BEACH — For Councilman Paul Casto, the area has to do a better job at preventing beach drownings.
In a meeting on June 27, he and other members of the Panama City Beach City Council agreed to host a workshop before their next meeting on July 11 to try and brainstorm ways to help stop these coastal deaths. The workshop will be held at 4 p.m. in City Hall, prior to the regular City Council meeting at 6 p.m.
Casto said that during the majority of his time on the council, he has believed transportation issues were the city's biggest obstacle. He noted that now might have changed.
"I'm not sure that this water-safety issue hasn't taken the top of (the list)," Casto said. "For two years in a row, we've earned the title as the world's most dangerous beaches, which is not something we should be proud of.
"We can do better. We have to do better."
The meeting comes in the wake of six beach drownings that occurred of Bay County beaches between June 20-23. Of these, two happened within PCB's city limits, and four happened off unincorporated county beaches.
With these deaths, Bay County already has logged seven beach drownings this year. The other happened in PCB on March 27.
All of these victims were tourists who entered the Gulf of Mexico under single-red-flag conditions and got caught in rip currents.
These deaths trail nine other local beach drownings that occurred in 2023. Six were within PCB's city limits, and three were off unincorporated county beaches. Two happened under single-red flags, while the seven others happened with double-red flags flying overhead.
Like this year's victims, the victims of 2023 also were all tourists who were killed by rip currents.
Rip currents are fast-moving currents created by channels in sandbars. The channels run perpendicular to the shoreline, causing water to funnel faster out into deeper waters. Rip currents can vary in strength, depending on how developed the channels are. They can sometimes be identified from shore where there is a gap in the wave break — areas where the white caps of the breaks are less noticeable.
Because rip currents can exist even when the Gulf appears calm from the shore, beach flags across Bay County do not represent how large waves are, but the strength of rips at that time. It also is illegal Bay County for swimmers to enter the Gulf of Mexico during double-red-flag conditions under penalty of a $500 fine.
In PCB, beach lifeguards work under the Panama City Beach Fire Rescue. During the June 27 meeting, Chief Ray Morgan said the department had nine full-time lifeguards and a "handful" of seasonal lifeguards.
Public safety:Panama City Beach police to have designated officers patrol coast during double red flags
To sign up for daily text alerts on local beach flag conditions, text "PCBFLAGS" to 888777.
"Any time that we have any lose of life, it's unacceptable," Morgan said. "Our jobs is to save lives, and this is a tough job that some days are just no-win situations for our team. ... We don't want to lose anyone, but the reality is we can't save everyone.
"(Lifeguards) are working seven days a week, and they're putting in crazy hours."
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