Duluth on the hunt for summer lifeguards
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The city of Duluth and the Duluth Area Family YMCA are struggling to recruit lifeguards to staff the Park Point beach on Lake Superior this summer.
Normally by this time of year, the Y — which contracts with the city to staff the beach — would have 80 percent of the lifeguards it needs. But this season? “I do not have anyone on my roster,” said YMCA risk manager Cheryl Podtburg.
She attributes the shortage partly to a training gap from the pandemic. Pay is also an issue. The Duluth Y has increased pay to $14 an hour this year — from $11— and waived the $250 certification fee, in an effort to lure more applicants.
Still, she said the downtown Duluth YMCA currently only employs about 12 lifeguards to staff its pool. She said she feels comfortably staffed when they have 25 lifeguards.
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And that doesn’t even take into account the dozen lifeguards she said are needed to staff the Park Point beach this summer.
The staffing crunch Duluth is facing is part of a nationwide shortage of lifeguards that Podtburg said has been building since before the pandemic.
"But the last couple of years have really made that issue explode and made it worse, which I —never thought I would ever say, that the staffing shortage in aquatics would ever get any worse than it was."
Last summer several city and county parks departments around the Twin Cities metro also struggled to hire enough lifeguards to staff beaches and pools.
In Duluth, lifeguards can play an especially critical role monitoring the Park Point beach on Lake Superior, where rip currents and other dangerous swimming conditions can sometimes prove deadly.
The city recently moved to fund lifeguards on Park Point with a portion of the tourism tax proceeds it collects from hotels and restaurants.
“Lifeguards play an essential role in beach safety,” Duluth Fire Chief Shawn Krizaj said. “Lifeguards are not only there to save lives but to prevent drownings and injuries from occurring.”
"Any rescue that we make, or any touch point that we have out on the beach, as beach lifeguards in particular, is potentially a call that didn't have to go to fire," Podtburg said.
Duluth hopes to have a new stable of lifeguards trained by Memorial Day.
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