SURFSIDE BEACH, Texas – Eight days after 11-year-old Joshua Lahai drowned at Surfside Beach, his death is fueling a growing push to rethink water safety along one of the Texas Gulf Coast’s most visited stretches of shoreline.
Search crews found Joshua’s body two days after he was swept away while swimming with his family and youth football team during Memorial Day weekend. Since then, an online petition calling for lifeguards at Surfside Beach has gathered more than 435 signatures.
For residents like Jerry Bass, the solution seems straightforward.
“I think it’s a great idea. It’ll create jobs and hopefully save people,” Bass said of the lifeguard petition.
But city leaders say the biggest obstacle is money — and funding a full lifeguard program would be no small feat.
“Anything that people want to talk about, I’m willing to put on the agenda, and finding a funding mechanism and getting approval for something like that requires consensus. It may be really hard for us to come up with funding for a full-fledged lifeguard program, but we are working on several things,” said Jonathan Gerber, Alderman at large for Surfside Beach.
One of those things is a new agreement with TEXSAR or Texas Search and Rescue.
“For this month’s agenda, I’m asking we discuss and take action on an agreement with TEXSAR, a first responder organization composed of professionally trained volunteers, as a force multiplier for event support. This would be at no cost. It would be through an interlocal agreement — they would be activated by first responders on the scene,” Gerber said.
The city also approved funding in April for a new messaging tool designed to help Surfside coordinate faster with Texas Aqua Search and Rescue.
Jeff Denicola, director of Texas Aqua Search, explained how the program works.
“Texas Aqua Search is a program that we launched here in Surfside Beach, and it is designed to align police, fire and EMS with the local surfers that have equipment. They’re super knowledgeable about all the conditions, the rip currents and the tides and dangers that are presented to swimmers here,” DeNicola said.
The goal is simple — get the right people in the water as fast as possible, especially as summer brings more visitors to the beach.
Surfside Beach Police Chief Philip Hester is also launching a new community safety initiative called “Community Floats Together.” Donated life jackets will be placed at beach entrances for anyone to use for free. When finished, beachgoers simply return the life jacket to the same spot for the next person.
The program has not yet launched but is coming soon.
For the Surfside Beach community, the memory of last week’s search is still fresh — and the push to make sure it doesn’t happen again is only getting louder.