Back in the swim
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald Lifeguards practice loading an unconscious swimmer on a backboard at the Surf ‘n Slide water park Friday. The pool opens for the summer Memorial Day weekend.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald Lifeguards practice removing an unconscious swimmer in at a training course at the Surf ‘n Slide water park Friday.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald Surf ‘n Slide water park director Tom Los gives instructions to lifeguards during training Friday.
MOSES LAKE — It’s here. At last. Summer is finally – almost – here. No coat, no snow, no ice, sit out in the yard, sleeveless shirts, sandals, open the windows, drive with the top down on the convertible. Aaah. Summer.
Of course, summer also means heat that reaches up off the sidewalk and grabs people by the throat. But hey, when it’s time to beat the heat, there’s the pool for that.
That’s one way to tell summer is coming – the pool is about to open. Tom Los, who manages the Surf ‘n Slide water park for Moses Lake Parks and Recreation, said Thursday the pool opens in two weeks – no. “We open in a week and a half. Oh. We open in a week and a half.”
The push to get ready for Opening Day starts in March – it’s a big pool, and it's opening for Memorial Day weekend. “Every year it seems to get closer and closer and quicker and quicker.”
The first step is opening the doors and checking all the equipment and the state of the empty pool. “It starts with maintenance. Because of the winter, the place isn’t as pretty as it is when we open it.”
The no-good very bad, winter of 2016-17 didn’t really do any more damage than lesser winters, Los said. By the time spring rolls around “it looks hideous, the bottom of the pool.” It’s full of a winter’s worth of dirt, leaves and pine needles, just general debris. The pool needs to be cleaned, the water treatment and circulation systems have to be tested.
“You never really know until you (test) the pump,” said Traci Bennett, parks and recreation director in Ephrata. The Splash Zone will open in mid-June, in response to changes in the Ephrata School District schedule.
But most of the pre-Opening Day effort and attention goes to the staff, 165 people in Moses Lake, about 100 in Ephrata. Lifeguard training begins early and keeps going all summer.
“We put a lot of money into safety, and it’s so worth it,” Los said.
“You can never have too much training. You can never practice it enough,” Bennett said. If an emergency arises the lifeguards have to be able to react without thinking about it much. “You want it to come naturally.”
Training helps with that process, Bennett said. In Moses Lake there are four hours of mandatory training every month, Los said, and lifeguards are audited every month to ensure they have the skills. They’re also subject to random testing of their skills.
Splash Zone employees also have mandatory training, Bennett said, four sessions during the three months the pool is open.