‘Mellow Weekend’ as O.C. Labors

Orange County’s beaches and highways were popular but free of major mishaps Sunday as the Labor Day weekend wound toward the finish line.

“It’s been kind of a dud of a weekend so far with the weather being all gray and dull outside,” said Huntington Beach city lifeguard Matt Mauser. “If the weather was better, we would expect big crowds, but . . . it’s been kind of a mellow weekend. We’ve had decreasing surf out of the south so [we’re] not real busy rescue-wise either.”

Still, he said, there were about 25,000 people on the city-owned 3.5-mile stretch of shoreline Sunday and “it is definitely the last hurrah for the summer.”

The California Highway Patrol reported no significant traffic woes, and CHP communications supervisor Paul Wilcox said it had been so slow Sunday that he suspected motorists “got out of town early.”