lifeguards to do if they think there is a serious chance of a violent thunderstorm hitting soon. And, obviously, a crowded beach is the hardest to clear on time. The only worse place to be during a thunderstorm is on a boat. In this case, clearing the beach quickly is even harder because of the seven flights of stairs the crowd will have to climb. For that reason, they might have started early to give everybody enough time to get up those stairs. I don’t know about the lifeguard who was on her phone a lot. For all we know, she was the one with the responsibility of tracking the radar.
I doubt very seriously that the lifeguards were just trying to get a half hour of not having to watch the water. Clearing the crowd and making sure everyone got to safety was a lot of work. I swim in a lot of different situations (inside/outside/pool/ocean) and I have a lot of respect for lifeguards. I’ve seen them save lives both in the ocean and in the pool. It might look like they are “doing nothing” but they have to be ready to spring into action whenever a situation suddenly comes up.
If you’re ever on a beach without lifeguards and you see or hear signs of a thunderstorm, get the hell off that beach as quickly as possible.
