Breaking: All County Beaches Under "Health Advisory"

Effective immediately, the Escambia County Department of Health has issued a "health advisory" warning the public that all Gulf-side beaches in Escambia County present health risks due to the "extensive presence of oil sheen, oil mousse and tar balls" and they should be avoided.

The new, expanded advisory includes all county beaches east of the fishing pier, including Casino Beach, the beach across the road from the five Portofino towers, county Beach East, and all beachfront to the Santa Rosa County line. Previous advisories included only a small section of beach west of the fishing pier and at the "Ft. Pickens Gate" picnic park at the western end of Pensacola Beach.

Beaches inside the Gulf Islands National Seashore areas at Opal Beach and Ft. Pickens on the western end of the island are under a similar health advisory. Gulf Islands National Seashore has a recorded information hotline for current oil spill conditions: 850-916-5658.

Panama City Plunge

We've said it before: if your money-grubbing idea for how to market your beach community to tourists is to encourage everybody to get drunk and high, then the least you could do is wire-off the high balconies.

Or, not.

"On a personal level, I got to know Matt quite well over the past few years, and he was a wonderful young man from a great family. Matt was an extremely talented person who was very bright and possessed a great, dry sense of humor. He could not wait to join the Notre Dame family."

Instead, you might tweak the promos just a little, and adopt a new slogan. How about:

"Come to Panama City for Spring Break:
It's to die for."

Panama Beach Balcony Fallings

According to the Panama City Herald, a Spring Break reveler died early last night "after falling five stories from a motel balcony... ." He was identified late today as Brandon Ward Kohler, 19, of Winder, Ga.

The Panama City newspaper adds that this --

was the first fatal balcony fall during this year’s Spring Break — one of the busiest in recent years — and the only such death since 2008.

The paper sounds almost proud of those statistics, doesn't it? The "only such death" in three years.

Of course, another way of putting it is, Panama City Beach is batting 2 for 3 annual balcony deaths, or .666. That's a major league average. Never mind the other near-death experiences:

Two people have survived falls this year. Earlier this month, a 21-year-old spring breaker fell three stories between a parking garage and the Laketown Wharf resort on South Thomas Drive. He suffered deep cuts, bruises and a sprained ankle.

Days later, a 20-year-old spring breaker fell about 12 feet when a second-floor balcony rail broke at a rental house on Beach Drive.

We don't care to speculate about the how's or why's of Brandon Kohler's death. It is a tragedy.

But all those young people fallings off high places in a single beach town can't be coincidental.

It's probably too much to expect Panama City Beach bar owners to stop serving manifestly inebriated or high Spring Breakers when they still have spare change or plastic in their pockets. But you'd think a beach town that promotes itself as the place to be for Spring Break drunk fests would put wire cages, or something, around all of its hotel balconies and other high perches.

Dept. of Panama City Spring Break Necropsy
04-04-2010

Another balcony death in Panama City: "Panama City Plunge"