• Visitor safety Visitor safety The tragic death of an Illinois couple at Lumaha‘i yesterday again points out the dangers visitors often unwittingly face on Kaua‘i. The couple was standing on lava rocks at Lumaha‘i Point and was swept into
• Visitor safety
Visitor safety
The tragic death of an Illinois couple at Lumaha‘i yesterday again points out the dangers visitors often unwittingly face on Kaua‘i. The couple was standing on lava rocks at Lumaha‘i Point and was swept into the ocean by a large set wave, while their 11-year-old son was rescued by others at the beach.
Outside of the comfortable visitor accommodations Kaua‘i offers, our island can quickly turn into a wilderness area, one of large waves, slippery red-dirt slopes, trails that can take you way off the beaten path. That’s part of Kaua‘i’s allure, and part of its largely unspoken danger.
These two probable drowning deaths also highlight the growing number of visitors to our beaches. Over the years County of Kaua‘i leaders and members of local organizations have placed beach-warning signage at Lumaha‘i and other unprotected beaches, and added lifeguards to many beaches popular with swimmers and surfers.
These efforts are commendable, but with the growing number of drownings and the number of visitors seeking out the wild spots of the island it is time to go to another level of making visitors aware of ocean and mountain dangers.
Accomplishing this should involve the visitor industry, as well as more support for county lifeguards and firefighters who deal with rescues.
Published water- and mountain-safety warnings in visitor guides, on Web sites and in other publications will help. With the heightened awareness of terrorism threats in our airports, it is time to also provide warnings about our natural dangers. Flyers are readily accepting the changes the war on terrorism has brought. Most won’t be turned off by watching water-safety videos in-flight, or picking up safety brochures at clearly marked kiosks or booths in baggage-claim areas, and at the piers where tour boats tie up. Fairly graphic photos of such tragedies should be posted to emphasize the dangers, and places like Lumaha‘i and Hanakapi‘ai Beach, where a disproportionate number of drowning deaths have occurred, should be pointed out to the visitors.
A commercial co-sponsor could help underwrite a brochure, with enough funds to publish hundreds of thousands of documents for year-round distribution. Prior efforts in this area have fallen short when the brochures ran out.
One way to fund this project would be to solicit public-service types of advertising, and donations by visitor-industry companies. Cutting our drowning death count even in half would be worth the dollars and effort needed to beef up the flow of safety information to visitors.
