Fourth of July weekend brings unusual risks for outdoor fun-seekers

Hordes of Bay Area residents will head to mountains, beaches, lakes and rivers this long Fourth of July weekend. A few might not come back.

Tragedies in recent years and the drownings and disappearances of more than a dozen people in California rivers since mid-April highlight the risks inherent in many popular outdoor activities — risks that are running higher than normal in this unusual weather year.

Emergency officials say high temperatures expected to persist at least through July 4 pose a major hazard for those venturing out for fun in the sun and will also rapidly accelerate snowmelt and boost the already severe danger from fast-flowing rivers swollen by frigid runoff from the past winter’s near-record snowpack.

“What is usually one of the traditionally busiest times of the year for search-and-rescue is going to be significantly more dangerous this year,” said Brian Ferguson, spokesman for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. Anticipated torrential runoff this weekend “is going to create perhaps the most dangerous water conditions that we’ve had on a holiday weekend in many, many years,” Ferguson said.

Other perils await. Newly opened trails closed until recently by snow beckon hikers who may get lost or slip and fall from icy spots, and high temperatures raise the risk of heatstroke. On the coast, forecasts for a minimal swell mean swimmers may be lured by the relative calm into dangerous currents, while forecasts for especially high tides mean tide-poolers and lovers of remote beaches may be trapped by a fast-rising ocean.

Data on the numbers of search-and-rescue operations in California is hard to come by, with most information scattered among local jurisdictions, said the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. However, according to data from national parks collected via a public records request by online publisher Outforia, from 2018 to 2020, Yosemite had 732 search-and-rescue incidents, while Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks together had 503.

Sheriff’s departments typically coordinate search-and-rescue operations, which can include firefighters and other emergency workers along with trained volunteers. In Butte County, Sheriff Kory Honea said he is anticipating “some high activity” for his search-and-rescue team. “I think the biggest area of concern for us is people tubing on the Sacramento River,” Honea said. “The river’s running pretty high.”

The current conditions can make rivers more dangerous than they appear to many people, Honea said. “When they jump in the river, it’s going to be much much colder than they anticipate, and the current may be much stronger than they anticipate,” he said.

Honea also has concerns about people boating on Lake Oroville, and those concerns apply to other lakes across the state, many burgeoning with snowmelt. Visitors should wear flotation devices while on the water, avoid drinking too much alcohol and make sure they have a sober boat pilot, Honea said.

U.S. Coast Guard data show that in California last year, boating-related accidents killed 43 people, with 39 dead each year from 2019 to 2021.

Holiday weekends also tend to bring Californians into the outdoors who rarely venture beyond civilization, Honea added. “Inevitably you get people who don’t have a very active lifestyle, but it’s a long weekend, the weather’s nice — they head out not being prepared, either without proper gear or they don’t have enough water.”

Rescue workers on the coast are also gearing up for crowds.

“We are expecting a pretty busy holiday weekend,” said Byran Kine, supervising lifeguard for Santa Cruz-area State Parks. “We probably will see some rescues this weekend, and we are staffing up in anticipation of that.”

While major ocean swells are not expected over the holiday, strong currents can pull swimmers into trouble “even when it’s not crazy big surf,” Kine said. Lifeguards in the Santa Cruz area — including several added for the weekend to patrol State Parks beaches on foot and in trucks — are are not anticipating severe riptides, but even moderate ones pose risks, Kine said.

Fallout from the storms of the past winter that dropped so much snow in the Sierra have also affected beaches, where pounding waves and ocean surges pulled out sand and narrowed beaches, boosting the risk that people could get stuck by the expected high tides over the weekend, Kine said.

Those exploring the coastline face that danger as well, along with the possibility of getting knocked into the water by waves. The winter’s ocean mayhem also dug out “holes” in the sand that may not be visible to people fishing, wading or walking beside apparently shallow water, Kine said.

The sheer number of people escaping to the mountains and waters means professional and volunteer rescuers charged with pulling people out of trouble are hoping for the best but preparing for the worst — especially as pandemic-era social distancing led large numbers of people to take up outdoor recreation.