Teen's drowning spotlights ongoing safety concerns about Milwaukee's McKinley Beach

As temperatures begin to rise and many pools and water parks across Milwaukee County are closed, Lake Michigan remains one of the only options for beachgoers this season — and a closed-off McKinley Beach remains a popular option for many residents.

It is a point of concern for local officials as there are growing safety concerns as people continue to use the beach despite its closure in 2020, supervisors noted during the county's Parks, Energy and Environment Committee meeting Tuesday.

This comes less than 24 hours after the death of a 16-year-old girl, who drowned in Lake Michigan near McKinley Marina Monday afternoon, and less than a week after Milwaukee County announced on-going lifeguard shortages.

"It underscores we need to have solutions identified for McKinley Beach," said Guy Smith, executive director of Milwaukee County Parks.

One such solution is to reestablish the original design of McKinley Beach introduced in early 1989 in an effort to reduce significant erosion and improve beach safety, according to a new report presented to the committee.

The $500,000 proposal said the improvements would accomplish the objective of reducing rip currents, but not stop them.

"There's no solution which completely eliminates them. That's just a fact of hydrodynamics and geography," said Heather Stabo, a senior engineer and project manager for the proposal.

The proposal also faces another hurdle: construction would not be done for this year's swimming season — meaning that McKinley Beach should remain closed this summer, according to Sarah Toomsen, the Parks Department's manager of planning and development.

The report, which was carried out between fall 2021 and spring 2022, focused on McKinley Beach, looking into swim safety in the area, the beach's sustainability as well as water quality. The findings showed that both the beach's geometry and high water were the cause of beach erosion and rip currents.

The beach has been closed since 2020 following a deadly record of drownings and has had a rickety fence sectioning off the beach from the walkway near the edge of McKinley.

There were at least four drownings at McKinley Beach in 2020, including a 14-year-old boy and a 50-year-old man, who attempted to save the teen. The report found that three drownings at the beach were tied to hanging around right off the end of the rip currents mentioned in the report.

But for all of the supervisors present, the redesign is not enough to mitigate possible drownings in the coming weeks.

Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman, whose east side district includes McKinley Beach, called for a more urgent measure for this season.

"We need the last-chance rope," he said, calling on the Parks Department, Smith and Toomsen. "I want to get some type of rope up there this summer — something to grasp onto."

While Wasserman called for a rope system to be put in place to help swimmers who are dragged out by rip currents, the team of experts who carried out the report noted that a rope did not address the problem at the beach and could be seen as a perceived safety measure that would eliminate the risk of drowning.

As it stands, Milwaukee employs a Beach Ambassador program, which monitors Bradford and McKinley beaches. The program has been recommended for a full proposal for American Rescue Plan Act funding for multiple years, Smith mentioned at committee.

But one thing is clear for Wasserman: nothing will stop residents from using the beach.

"McKinley Beach has to be open," said Wasserman. "So, the bottom line is that it has to be open as soon as possible. People don't care if those fences are there."

Contact Vanessa Swales at 414-308-5881 or vswales@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vanessa_Swales.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee aims to improve safety of McKinley Beach, 16-year-old drowns