MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – Myrtle Beach Fire Rescue is preparing for another busy summer on the city’s beaches and the department’s newest tool aims to help keep children from getting lost at the beach.
Whether you’re from the Myrtle Beach area or just visiting, it’s not always easy to tell exactly where you are on the beach and it can be even more confusing for children.
“Last year, we had more than 200 kids that got lost on the beach and, fortunately, were found within 5-10 minutes,” said Lt. Jonathan Evans with MBFR.
That’s why MBFR will put up signs at several public beach access points with avenue numbers in large font. Northern avenue numbers will be in red, southern avenue numbers will be in black.
The signs will also be about six feet high on the wooden walkways at beach access points. Right now, the only location signs at most points are small, brown and white signs near the ground.
The signs also have a new mascot named “Sunny Swell” to encourage kids to remember where they are. Surfside Beach and Garden City Beach have similar signs with children identification symbols like a dog or crab at their public access points.
MBFR says reducing how many kids get lost also helps lifeguards pay attention to the ocean.
“When a child gets lost on the beach or a person gets lost on the beach, that also becomes a main concern for us,” Lt. Evans said. “We’re going to do everything we can to find them, but that takes our eyes and resources off that other danger that’s out here.”
MBFR added more resources on the oceanfront recently, including lifesaving robots called EMILYs last year, but the department declined to discuss how effective they were in their first summer.
As for “Sunny Swell,” Lt. Evans says he wants kids to associate the smiling rescue buoy with remembering where their families are.
“I think he’s going to be a great character for the kids,” Lt. Evans said. “We’re going to try to get him out all over the place, on billboards, TV, maybe even the placemats of the restaurants and things like that. The more familiar we can get this with our people, the better.”
MBFR says it hopes to put up as many signs as it can before Memorial Day weekend and the goal is to also buy two signs for each public beach access point by next year.