Design Quirks : Lifeguards Steamed Over Glass Towers

Until the recent heat wave, the pride of the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors was its new set of 14 fiberglass lifeguard towers, placed in June along stretches of shoreline from Zuma Beach to Redondo Beach.

The towers, which cost $8,500 apiece, bear more than a passing resemblance to a lunar excursion module, especially when contrasted with the approximately 100 traditional wooden lifeguard shacks still on the beach. Balanced on spidery legs, the prototypes feature huge outward-slanting glass windows and narrow corner posts for increased visibility.

“This is the state-of-the-art lifeguard tower,” Lifeguard Capt. Don Rohrer boasted.

Problem With Heat

But every experiment has its glitch. When temperatures soared during the last two weeks, the glass cages became ovens and the lifeguards baked. A county occupational health investigator was told that the interior of one tower reached 107 degrees last week--nearly 20 degrees higher than the temperature outside.

Last week, a guard at Hermosa Beach developed a headache and nausea that he blamed on the heat; he paid a visit to a South Bay emergency room. And, lifeguards reported, a curious and distinct odor accompanied the extreme heat inside their new stations.

Now, the county has given lifeguards assigned to the new towers the option of sitting outside on the sand until the manufacturer can add air vents to each one--along with other changes that may increase the cost to the county by as much as $3,000 per tower.

‘This Is Ridiculous’

“This is ridiculous,” said Pat Padilla, who spends every Monday in prototype Tower 3 at Zuma Beach. “Everybody hates this thing.”

Padilla, a mustachioed, sunglassed man in his seventh summer as a lifeguard, sat inside the tower this week. A southeast wind--the first all summer--brought a breeze through the open back door.

“Actually it’s almost comfortable in here today,” he said. “Usually the wind’s straight east and west, so the door doesn’t help. Usually, you come in here, it feels like a steam room.”

Padilla is also troubled by one other design quirk. Without a front ramp, he said, the only way to leave the tower is by going out the back door and then down a side ladder. That means that after he spots someone in trouble, he loses sight of the person on his way to go help. “And that can be a real problem,” he said.

The complaints dismay John Rasher, president of Techni-Glass Inc., the Northridge company that designed and built the new

towers.

The bulk of his firm’s business is manufacturing fiberglass automotive parts. Seven years ago, Techni-Glass started making lifeguard towers “so I could work at the beach,” Rasher said.

Rasher, 37, is a surfer who claims he knew the legendary Mickey Dora and Lance Carson when the sport first became popular in the 1960s.

“The highlight of my life,” he said, was “when I drove my four-wheel drive vehicle to Third Point at Malibu Surfrider Beach,” a famous surfing spot, to install one of the towers.

He has sold towers of an earlier design to hotels in San Diego and to the state for Ventura County beaches. He was so enthusiastic about selling to Los Angeles County that he donated Tower 14 at Las Tunas Beach.

Concern for Drafts

Ironically, he said, his greatest worry about the new towers was that they might get too drafty and cold at sunset. “It’s not as well insulated as the wood,” he said.

He eliminated the front ramp, he said, because lifeguards and visitors have been known to trip on them.

His response to the lifeguards’ complaints will be to install large stainless steel, louvered sections with sliding doors that allow air to flow in or be shut off. He also will add ramps.

William McClure, administrator of the health and occupational safety division of the county’s administrative office, said these vents should solve the heat and odor problems. “There is no health hazard, but we do want to correct the problem,” he said.

The adjustments should be made within two weeks, Rasher said. Any future replacements for the wooden towers will come equipped with vents, he said.

Despite the initial problems, county beach officials want more of the fiberglass towers.

“These are a lot easier to maintain,” said Ken Johnson, chief of the beach department’s community services division.