Thousands Bolt to Beaches as Summery Heat Arrives

Summer-like temperatures--hitting a record 91 degrees in Santa Ana--triggered a mass pilgrimage to county beaches Saturday. Lifeguards reported large numbers of heat-weary people braving traffic and packed parking lots to reach the cooling surf.

“It is like a summer day, almost like the Fourth of July,” said Jeff Gilbert, a lifeguard in Laguna Beach, where he estimated the crowd at 30,000 to 40,000.

In Newport Beach, lifeguard Gordon Reed said there were “lots of people in the water.” At 69 degrees, the ocean was “as warm as I can remember it for this time of the year,” he said.

Flocks of swimmers caused some beaches to be closed partly or completely to surfers to prevent collisions.

Many rescues took place, lifeguards said, mostly because of rip currents. Lifeguards reported a total of 30 rescues at Doheny, San Clemente and San Onofre state beaches.

At Huntington State Beach, dispatcher Dan Kennedy said there were about 70 rescues and a crowd of about 30,000.

About 15,000 people gathered at San Clemente’s main city beach, where lifeguard Bill Humphreys said by late afternoon there had been 33 rescues. “It is typical with a crowd this size,” he said. “There are a lot of inexperienced ocean swimmers.”

Besides pulling hapless swimmers out of the water, lifeguards said, they were busy looking for the parents of lost children and providing first aid to barefoot people stung by stingrays, who on warm days like to swim into shallow tide pools to bask in the sun.

Lifeguard Steve Cushman in Seal Beach said the size of the beach crowd--16,000 to 18,000-- surprised him.

“The parking lots were full by 11 a.m.,” he said. “Originally, I had five guards on duty, but I called in four more immediately.”

Until the late afternoon, he said, there was little breeze on shore. “It is so hot down here that the lifeguards had to go in the water just to cool off,” he said.

Noting that inclement weather discouraged beach-going last summer, Cushman wondered whether the action will pick up. “It is showing signs of being a real blazing summer,” he noted.

The warm, muggy, cloud-free weather is expected to continue, with only gradual cooling through the week, according to Steve Burback, meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

Burback said Santa Ana’s peak temperature of 91 degrees Saturday beat the old record for the same date in 1965 by 7 degrees.