New effort to make Monastery Beach safer

A beach on the Monterey Peninsula known for its dangerous waters may be seeing some changes to prevent drowning deaths. If you go to Monastery Beach you will even see a sign that shows a running tally of those who have drowned, and so far that number is at 30.

“The actual dynamics of the beach, its a very steep slope. and there is this churning that happens and so people get sucked in and they have a really hard time of coming back out,” Carmel Mayor Jason Burnett said.

Locals know the water can be rough at times, and they said you have to do what is known as the “Monastery crawl,” just to get out.

But tourists like, Sharon White was visiting from Texas and had no idea about the dangerous water. In fact, NewsChannel 5 showed up just in the nick of time.
“I’m glad that you were here to tell me because i was going to walk out into the water to take some pictures,” White said.

Just last March, a woman was drowned when she was taking pictures and a wave pulled her in. Emergency responders said worldwide more than 400,000 people die a year from drowning. It’s something the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula sees all too often in their E.R.

“Unfortunately we do see the end result of what happens when somebody drowns at one of our local beaches. its obviously devastating on families but also for our first responders,” Medical Director of CHOMP, Sameer Bakhda said.

Tuesday the hospital held a meeting with the Carmel city leaders and those first responders to prevent accidents in the future. Burnett said one of the options they discussed is having more signage explaining how dangerous the water is.

The sign would also mention Monastery is an advance dive site. Another idea would be to station a permanent lifeguard at Monastery beach.

“It’s one of the more deadly beaches in this whole section of California. and I think it’s our broad responsibility to make sure that all of our residents and our visitors are safe,” Burnett said.

Until then White said she’ll keep her toes dry on her visit. Mayor Burnett said Tuesday’s meeting was just the first of a series of meetings. They will ask for the public’s input later this year.