Hyde County partners with NPS to fund lifeguards

June 2014

By Connie Leinbach

After months of wran­gling, Ocracoke has life­guards at its public beach seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Early in May, Hyde County commissioners agreed to pay out of Ocracoke Occupancy Tax monies the estimated $10,000 for weekend lifeguard coverage while the National Park Service will pay for five days of cover­age provided by Surf Rescue, a private company in Duck.

Last November, Barclay Trimble, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Sea­shore (CHNS) of the National Park Service, had announced that due to budget constraints, he was eliminating lifeguard ser­vice on the three public beaches in the CHNS, a service the Park Service has supplied since the 1950s.

Ocracoke began to rally against this significant cutback in Febru­ary (after having to successfully fight off a third attempt to toll the Hatteras ferry.) Protest efforts by many residents and concerned friends of the island–who signed an online petition at change.org, wrote letters, called and emailed the superintendent had an impact. With additional help from U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, Trimble an­nounced that his budget could afford lifeguards for five days a week. If the other two communi­ties at Coquina and Cape Hatteras Lighthouse beaches wanted life­guards for the other two days, they would have to partner with the NPS at the tune of $10,000 each.

In mid-May, Trimble an­nounced that the summer life­guard program would resume the full seven days per week this summer at the other beaches and on Ocracoke.

“The National Park Service is pleased to be able to provide, along with local entities, this valuable service for the safety of our Seashore visitors,” Trimble said in a press release.

Also in mid-May, Don Hutson, chief lifeguard at the Ocracoke beach last year, was among sev­eral NPS employees honored for bravery in Washington, D.C., at the Department of the Interior’s 69th Honor Awards Convoca­tion. According to a NPS press release, Hutson helped rescue five swimmers caught in rip currents and personally towed four of the swimmers to shore through 100-plus yards of strong current and surf.

Dylan Bennink, who was a lifeguard on Ocracoke last year and is the island’s dock master at Anchorage Marina this year, confirmed that he also saved a father and a son last year from a rip current.