Do any of you across this great land swim at a YMCA indoor facility that does NOT automatically close the pool whenever there are thunderstorms in the area?
Two of our three practices this week have been cancelled because of thunderstorms.
On another thread, someone posted how the total number of deaths from indoor pool electrocutions during thunderstorms--in the history of the world--total precisely zero.
I have made this argument endlessly to our Y authorities, all to no avail. Two university pools--Pitt and CMU--do NOT close their indoor pools because of lightning and, in fact, find the concept chortlesome.
If you do swim at a Y pool with a more enlightened policy, can you send word as to how you got your aquatic staff to override the (misguided) national YMCA policy about this?
Signed--
Slowly desiccating in Sewickley, Pa
I live and swim outdoors a couple miles from a pretty large Air Force weapons testing and training site. There are still times I (and any lifeguards) can't tell the difference between actual thunder and the AF just blowing stuff up again.
I think that is a pretty awesome problem to have! Science in progress!!
I swim in a non-Y, community center pool not affiliated with any national organization. The guards are Red-Cross trained.
They close the pool and hot-tub in lightning storms.
What cracks me up is they don't close any of the various locker room showers. They also do not close the sauna room which is situated on the pool deck, and wired into the pool's circuits. :badday:
While I was swimming (but maybe not) during the lightning storm at lunch today, I was musing on this subject again. I remember a regular meet I used to swim in FL in high school was at a large LC pool on an Air Force Base. As I mentioned, lightning in FL is common in the summer so we'd often have to stall the entire meet and wait out the 30 minutes, but there was no significantly sized building nearby. So we waited outside. . . on the pool deck. . . under the shade. . . in metal bleachers.
there is always a downside to nonsense
There is no downside to this policy, however misguided it may be at times.
So they close the pool for 30 minutes. Total cost to them, basically zero (i.e., what a life gaurd gets paid to do nothing for 30 minutes)
If through some freak accident something DOES happen, and people are in the water and get killed or injured, the resulting lawsuits/settlements will cost multiple millions of $.
You do the math.
I may (or may not) have swum (currently swim?) in a Y (or Y-like) pool that apparently does not know (ignores?) this policy. I hesitate to reply because I don't want to ruin it for me. This pool also operates outside of a couple of other recommendations for operating a pool, but it works for me. Just don't ask me what shape the drains are.
Back in high school (age group club), we trained in a University indoor pool that always closed for lightning which is frequent in Florida summers. However, at that point in my life, it was much more blessing than curse.
There is no downside to this policy, however misguided it may be at times.
So they close the pool for 30 minutes. Total cost to them, basically zero (i.e., what a life gaurd gets paid to do nothing for 30 minutes)
If through some freak accident something DOES happen, and people are in the water and get killed or injured, the resulting lawsuits/settlements will cost multiple millions of $.
You do the math.
Saw this today on Learn From My Fail (#LFMF). I'm assuming the poster is telling the truth:
When swimming in a lake, do not ignore those thunder clouds in the distance. Lightning can strike miles away from the cloud that originated it. And even if it hits the nearby rocks and not the lake itself, it still feels like all your bones have been broken. #LFMF
Submitted by: Rach via Submit Page
:badday:
I just spent 80 minutes watching 6 guards/instructors all sit around a pool deck chit chatting while swimmers and parents are wondering why we are not able to swim. We all heard the 1 clap of thunder off in the distance that forced them to close the pool for 30 minutes but then just as it was getting close to time to open the pool they conveniently hear another one that no one else heard. So there is another 30 minutes. NO STORM, NO RAIN my parents are disgusted with the situation. I guess I will need to bring it up to the director tomorrow.
I just spent 80 minutes watching 6 guards/instructors all sit around a pool deck chit chatting while swimmers and parents are wondering why we are not able to swim. We all heard the 1 clap of thunder off in the distance that forced them to close the pool for 30 minutes but then just as it was getting close to time to open the pool they conveniently hear another one that no one else heard. So there is another 30 minutes. NO STORM, NO RAIN my parents are disgusted with the situation. I guess I will need to bring it up to the director tomorrow.
That's unfortunate. Most places have the director/manager make the call. I can imagine that some high school or college kids wouldn't mind having to sit around and not work.
I am wondering if our beloved directors and board members and various other high level USMS functionaries (and I use functionary here in the most complimentary possible sense, simply because I know of no synonym) might intercede on the behalf of side-lined masters and fitness swimmers everywhere, whose hope to get a decent workout in an indoor pool is routinely being stymied by superstition and faulty pseudo science.
Perhaps a White Paper from USMS could be something that would help promote the organization's mission, i.e., promoting health and fitness through swimming.
I say this now at 4:49 on a sultry late afternoon in the Pittsburgh area, the dew point 69 degrees F, the storm clouds already on the Ohio-PA state line, and the prospects for our swimming practice at 6:30 becoming progressively dimmer by the minute...
Help, promoters of swimming!
Rob Butcher, would you call the director of the Sewickley Valley Family YMCA and talk some sense into him?
