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Two people drowned on Memorial Day weekend in two separate incidents at beaches in Galveston.
One man drowned in a guarded area, according to Peter Davis, chief of Galveston Island Beach Patrol. That was "really unusual for that to happen," he said. A total of five people were involved in that incident, he said.
"The guard went out (to rescue) five people (who went under), and we were able to save three, one self-rescued, and then one ended up drowning," Davis said.
A 26-year-old man from Louisiana drowned, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The second death was a 19-year-old young woman who was body surfing with her brother.
"Some bystanders helped bring them in, and CPR was done by bystanders until advanced life support arrived and transported, and then pronounced (dead) at the hospital," Davis said. "Those two tragedies weigh really heavily on my staff."
Davis said Galveston beaches have a program called Survivor Support Network where there was quick intervention for staff from counselors after the rescues.
Davis said conditions from the weekend made for an "ultimate storm" in terms of environmental conditions and crowd density.
"We had close to half a million people here on the island," he said. "Typically, at 250,000 to 500,000 people here on a really busy, busy weekend. And I think we were way on the upper end of that."
The beaches also had red flag conditions on three of the four days of the long weekend. Red flags are flown when conditions are determined to be out of the ordinary, such as the presence of strong wind, strong current or large surf. During this time, beach officials advise adult swimmers to only stay in water no more than waist deep and non-swimmers and children should be kept along the surf line.
"They had just huge choppy surf, a ton of current, really fat, scary rip currents by any structure out there on the beach," Davis said. "And then we had just all the people and then it suddenly was warm. The water was in the 80s, all the cold and windy and rainy and weather that we had all spring, that’s kind of kept crowds down. You know, all that kind of broke all at once. And so everything kind of came together on the island over the weekend."
They also had three non-fatal near-drownings and 19 medical responses this weekend, he said.
Davis said the five-person rescue incident was due to rip currents, which are responsible for 80% of the patrol's rescues.
"You want to avoid this rip current and the way to do that here is to stay away from structures and close to shore when we have rougher conditions," he said. "And so any of those structures out there generates a rip current, which is like a little river that pulls out into the water."
Davis said the most important tip is to swim near lifeguards and be aware of rip currents. He also said don't swim alone and to be sure to go into the water with children.