Warm Crowds Rediscover Cool Beaches

An estimated 320,000 people seeking relief from near-record heat jammed beaches from Seal Beach to San Onofre Sunday, creating summer-like traffic snarls and sorely taxing skeleton lifeguard crews with more than 46 rescues and an equal number of first-aid cases and lost children.

“If there is a bare patch of sand anywhere, we think it’s in someone’s cat box,” said Seal Beach lifeguard chief Jim Dorsey. “It’s been unreal . . . nothing but radios, tanning oil, and lots of sun.”

“It’s just like a busy summer day--no, more like a summer holiday,” said Newport Beach marine safety officer Eric Bauer.

Two youths who suffered moderate neck and head injuries were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment and observation as a precautionary measure, lifeguards said. But most incidents were of the cut-foot, scraped-knee variety, authorities said.

Just Short of Record

The scramble to the beaches was propelled by hot, dry Santa Ana winds, which sent the mercury soaring to 91 degrees in downtown Santa Ana Sunday. That was just one degree shy of the record 92 degrees for April 20 set in Santa Ana in 1906. Highs at area beaches ranged from the mid-70s to the mid-80s.

The Sunday rush was so great that many beach parking lots from Bolsa Chica to San Clemente and Doheny state beaches were closed by noon.

“There just isn’t any parking down here at all,” said Bauer in Newport Beach, where more than 100,000 people dotted the shore.

In Laguna Beach, traffic was backed up a mile in each direction at Coast Highway and Laguna Canyon Road for much of the day, city lifeguard Mike Dwinell said.

Ocean Was Bracing

Decidedly chilly water temperatures of 58 to 62 degrees kept many visitors safely on the sand. “For most people, that’s still uncomfortable if they stay in more than five or 10 minutes,” Huntington Beach State Park lifeguard supervisor Richard Rozzelle said. “So mostly they’re staying on the beach, flying their kites or riding their bikes.”

Cold waters and mild surf kept rescues at Huntington State Beach down to four, including 13-year-old Jason Watt of Santa Ana, who suffered a neck injury after diving in too-shallow surf, Rozzelle said.

The youth was reported in good condition at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and was expected to be released late Sunday.

At nearby Bolsa Chica State Beach, an unidentified youth was knocked unconscious briefly in a fall from a bicycle and was taken to a nearby hospital as a precautionary measure, lifeguard supervisor Scott Melvin said. No details on the boy or the accident were immediately available.

In San Clemente, a crowd of 12,000 kept lifeguards hopping.

“It’s just about as crowded as it gets here, except for a summer holiday weekend like the 4th of July,” said city lifeguard supervisor Brian Covert.

“On a day like this in summer, we’d have 16 lifeguards; today we had seven. So we were running around a lot. Fortunately, we didn’t have too many rescues, and the waves were pretty small,” Covert said.

In Seal Beach, lifeguards were kept busy reuniting 12 lost children with their parents, Dorsey said.

After a hectic day at San Clemente State Beach, John Drucker said that he and fellow lifeguards relaxed briefly by watching two gray whales frolic in the waves about 30 yards offshore.

It May Get Cooler

The National Weather Service said a cooling trend should begin late today.

A high-pressure area over Nevada and Utah that has been pushing hot, dry desert air westward to the coastline for the last few days is weakening and beginning to disintegrate, meteorologists said, and that means that the afternoon sea breeze should penetrate farther and farther inland over the next several days.

Sunday’s highs elsewhere in Orange County were 87 degrees in El Toro and 78 in Newport Beach. Forecasters said that today should be 6 or 7 degrees cooler, with some fog and low clouds developing along the coast tonight and Tuesday morning.

Afternoons should remain clear and sunny, the weather service said, with highs hovering in the comfortable mid-70s range for the rest of the week.