After 4 beach drownings, Mayor Adams dismisses calls for longer lifeguard hours

Faced with the drownings of four New Yorkers less than three weeks into summer, Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday rejected elected officials’ calls to extend lifeguard hours at the city’s beaches. He said efforts should instead focus on teaching the public about water safety.

“It's more about education,” Adams told reporters during a City Hall press conference, adding that the city needed to “educate parents on when is the time to be in the water and when we don’t want people in the water.”

The mayor’s comments came hours after he attended the funeral of Zainab Mohammed, 17, and Aisha Mohammed, 18, two sisters from the Bronx who drowned on Friday night at Coney Island Beach. Last month, two teenage boys drowned in the waters off Jacob Riis Park. Both incidents occurred on hot days and after lifeguards had ended their shifts at 6 p.m.

Only four people died by drowning at New York City beaches in all of last season. The four deaths about three weeks into this summer have spurred some elected officials to take up the perennial challenge of getting the city to extend lifeguard hours, even if only in some stretches of beaches.

“We are already off to four drownings this year,” said Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president. “And if that's not cause for a state of emergency, I think the mayor is solely misled.”

“I think City Hall has to take this bull by its horn,” Richards added. “Otherwise, we're going to continue to see more lives lost this summer.”

Longer beach hours would not be unprecedented. Most recently, former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2019 extended hours at city pools and beaches during a July heat wave.

At least 16 people have drowned at city beaches since 2019, according to a Gothamist analysis.

Adams said on Tuesday that the city's lifeguard shifts were similar in duration to those of lifeguards in other large U.S. cities. In addition to swimming lessons, he spoke about the importance of teaching residents to decipher different beach warning flags. A red flag indicates that swimming is not permitted.

The mayor has also touted the use of technology to surveil beaches. City officials said the police and fire departments have begun flying drones equipped with flotation devices this summer, and that the drones operate throughout the day until 8 p.m.

Over the decades, battles with the city's lifeguard union have stymied efforts to alter lifeguard practices. Adams this year negotiated a new contract that should make it easier for the city to hire lifeguards. But the ongoing lifeguard shortage has nonetheless hampered recruitment and left beaches and pools understaffed.

That has not stopped some from saying the city’s policies fall short.

On Tuesday, Richards and three other elected officials — Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and City Councilmembers Shekar Krishan and Justin Brannan — released a statement urging the mayor and parks department to “immediately consider emergency options to increase safety at public beaches.”

They said the city could try several measures, such as extending lifeguard testing into the spring, to give more people an opportunity to take the test. Currently, the last test is administered in February.

They also suggested having the city’s education department adopt a swim curriculum, thereby creating a pipeline of lifeguards at city high schools.

The city began the season with around 600 lifeguards, a little more than a third of the 1,500 needed for full staffing. That number has now increased to 800, Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi said on Tuesday.

Liam Quigley contributed reporting.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the total number of lifeguards the city says it needs. The city says its needs roughly 500 lifeguards at pools and 1,000 at beaches.