The casket of Baldwin County SheriffÕs Deputy Bill Smith is removed from Baldwin County Coliseum following his funeral service Saturday, June 12, 2021, in Robertsdale, Ala. (Mike Kittrell/AL.com)

An incident report on the drowning death of a Baldwin County Sheriff’s deputy last year continues to raise questions about the training and readiness of emergency personnel in the popular Fort Morgan peninsula.

The report, conducted last year by the Gulf Shores Police Department, points out the absence of trained lifeguards and an overwhelmed volunteer fire department during a chaotic scene that occurred in the dangerous Gulf waters on June 6, 2021.

Ten people were in distress, needing medical assistance and five were transported to a hospital. Deputy William “Bill” Smith, 57, drowned after he saved the life of one of the distressed swimmers.

A year later, the same volunteer fire agency is still in charge of emergencies, and there are no plans to hire and place lifeguards within the peninsula west of Gulf Shores.

The incident report suggests that volunteer firefighters, none who are certified lifeguards, were unable to utilize the personal watercraft and other equipment during the emergency. Additionally, the report suggests there was uncertainty over the chain of command at the Fort Morgan Volunteer Fire Department last year.

“I think there are well-intentioned people down there with the Fort Morgan volunteer fire department,” said Gulf Shores Police Chief Ed Delmore. “But as one can see with the (incident report), it’s wholly inadequate. The training they have, the equipment they have and the experience they have is lacking.”

He added, “The danger, from our perspective, is that people travel to the area and believe they have a degree of professional, life-saving protection down there. A lot of people don’t know the difference between unincorporated Fort Morgan and Gulf Shores (city limits). There needs to be professional services there. It’s beyond the scope of what a volunteer fire department can handle.”

The report illustrates the existing gap in services that remains within Fort Morgan, an unincorporated peninsula that stretches about 20 miles west of Gulf Shores and consists of mostly private beachfront properties and vacation homes that have become popular vacation destinations in coastal Alabama.

A year after the tragedy, authorities have purchased more equipment and have improved on communications and text alerts to warn visitors about dangerous surf. Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism are promoting a new “BEach SAFE” campaign aimed at creating awareness among visitors and residents about beach conditions, warning flags, etc.

Fort Morgan Volunteer Fire Department Chief Craig Rohman said his squad recently purchased a self-powered electric water rescue device called a Dolphin I. He said a “majority of my team has been trained on it,” but admits that there are no certified lifeguards or rescue swimmers within the department. Baldwin County Sheriff’s deputies, who assist in emergencies and patrol the peninsula, are also not certified lifeguards.

“We have 15 volunteers, and they respond (to emergencies) when they are available and not at their regular full-time job,” said Rohman, who declined to comment about the incident report.

There also remains no plan to add trained lifeguards to an area that is largely unregulated but remains a key part of a coastal area enjoying booming tourism. According to state tourism figures, 8 million visitors came to Baldwin County in 2021, a 17% increase over the previous record-setting year in 2019.

The lack of trained rescue swimmers is raising vexing question among coastal politicians: Should the county find a way to raise tax money to pay for a team of lifeguards, and station them throughout the peninsula? And would such a team make enough of a difference to prevent future drownings?

“I do think the county needs to seriously look at standing up an entity that is a professional beach patrol or something similar in the unincorporated areas of Fort Morgan,” said state Senator Chris Elliott, R-Daphne, a former county commissioner. “We have too many visitors there who are getting in the water regardless of the (warning) flags.”

He is suggesting a small increase in county’s lodging tax rate – which would need the State Legislature’s approval. A lodging tax increase, Elliott said, would create a financing mechanism that would more than pay for a team of lifeguards and lifeguard stands that would be stationed throughout the peninsula.

A lodging tax increase would also make Fort Morgan more on par with their counterparts in nearby Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. City officials in both of those cities adopted phased-in lodging tax rate increases this year to raise the funds to address a variety of needs:

After the increases are in effect, both cities will have an overall lodging tax rate at 16%. In Fort Morgan, the tax is much lower – at 6% in most places (that consists of 4% assessed by the state, 2% by the county).

Elliott said a bill is drafted and ready to go if the Baldwin County Commission supports it.

“To the extent the county needs authority from the Legislature to do this, I have a bill drafted,” he said. “But I don’t want to pass a revenue source if there is no one to catch the ball (from the county).”

He said he has received no indication from any of the four commissioners that a lodging tax increase should move forward.

Baldwin County Commission Chairman Jeb Ball said he is not sure a team of lifeguards would prevent the emergencies that occur on the peninsula’s beaches.

He said he believes there is a personal responsibility factor that needs to come into play, and that visitors should heed the warning signs and pay more attention to the beefed-up messaging that has occurred in the past year. That includes the addition of digital road signs, informational flyers placed inside beach rentals, text alerts, and more.

The county’s EMA, for instance, is urging visitors to sign up for daily beach conditions by texting “ALBEACHES” to “888777.”

“We’re losing track of the real story here,” Ball said. “I’ve lived here 50 years and that beach has never been patrolled.”

He added, “All I know is that the county commissioner along with the (Emergency Management Agency) and all the branches involved in this have done a lot of updating on things as far as a website, alert system and it’s one of these things that, no matter what we do, there will be drownings at the beach. It’s because the swimmers don’t care (about the warning signs).”

Elliott, a year ago, echoed Ball’s beliefs about personal responsibility. But he said that too many tragedies have occurred in Fort Morgan, and that a solution is needed as more and more tourists come to Alabama’s Gulf Coast.

“We can sit there and wave a finger at them, but it does no good,” Elliott said. “What we saw with Deputy Smith is that if they don’t check the app on the phone, and despite all the things we’ve done, it’s the law enforcement guy or the Good Samaritan who tries to save someone and then they get killed. We have to figure out a way to engage here and fix it.”

Ball said that drownings are still occurring in the cities where lifeguards are present. Orange Beach and Gulf Shores – two cities with more than two dozen lifeguards each – had to respond to a lot of calls over Memorial Day weekend, and in previous weekends as well. In Orange Beach, a teenager from Baton Rogue drowned two weekends ago, and more than two dozen swimmers had to be rescued over the holiday weekend. Close to 40 people had to be rescued in Gulf Shores last weekend.

Ball said people are not fearful enough of entering the Gulf during rough surfs, even if double red flags are waving. Entering the Gulf while double red flags are up can lead to a fine or an arrest, since the Gulf is technically closed to swimmers. A single red flag warns swimmers that the Gulf is hazardous, and that the surf is rough, and the currents are dangerous.

Melvin Shepard, who heads up beach safety with the Gulf Shores Fire Department, said there is still an information gap about warning flags and deadly surf that can lead to strong rip currents among visitors unaccustomed to the Gulf of Mexico who are flocking to coastal Alabama for vacations.

“The problem is, once they get here, they want to dump their stuff into the condos and head to the beach,” said Shepard, whose staff consists of 30 lifeguards stationed on beaches within the city of Gulf Shores. “Because of COVID, they are now checking in with cell phones so we are trying to get information to them through the check-in process.”

Brett Lesinger, with the Orange Beach Fire Department’s beach safety division, said the key is getting the visiting public connected to what he says is now a “ton of resources” that can alert the public to unsafe beach conditions.

Orange Beach has 27 lifeguards stationed along its eight miles of beachfront. Both cities are also being supported by an Alabama Law Enforcement Agency helicopter, which will be available for emergency situations during peak summer weekends.

In Fort Morgan, the volunteer fire department serves as the main rescue squad.

Said Ball, “The county commission is not part of beach enforcement. All we have are volunteer firemen scattered in this county.”

He said the Sheriff’s Department patrols the peninsula, but deputies are also not trained as lifeguards.

“They are not going to let someone drown,” said Ball. “They would go into a burning house … they do all that kind of stuff. Bill (Smith) did what he did because he was willing to save a life.”

The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department continues to assist the Fort Morgan Volunteer Fire Department with beach patrols and has been doing so since 2020.

Two years ago, the volunteer fire agency decided to back out of conducting regular beach patrols. According to a reports on local TV, the beaches were a dangerous setting in which larger-than-normal crowds, tents and other clutter were problematic for them to maneuver UTVs and other vehicles they might drive on the beaches.

The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department attempts to “fill a public safety void in Fort Morgan,” according to the incident report on Smith’s drowning.

Baldwin County Sheriff Huey "Hoss" Mack visits with his team after a news conference on Monday, June 7, 2021, in Robertsdale, Ala. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com).

Delmore, the Gulf Shores police chief, said that Sheriff Huey “Hoss” Mack does “everything he can given the resources he has.” Baldwin County, as Delmore notes, has a huge land mass that eclipses any other county in Alabama. Most of it is patrolled by the Sheriff’s Department. Fort Morgan is only a small stretch of the department’s responsibilities.

“They are spread thin,” Delmore said. “I don’t know if it makes sense to provide (more emergency response) by the Sheriff’s Department. Those are political decisions and not for me to say what those options are. But when you look at the number of personnel the sheriff has available to him, he’s dedicating a good amount of resources to what is a relatively small area of the county, albeit one where a lot of things happen.”

Smith and Deputy Sydney Wentworth – who was also credited with saving a distressed swimmer’s life last year -- were part of the Sheriff’s Department’s Beach Patrol Unit, which had just been started up a few months before tragic incident.

Mack said his agency’s existing Coastal Enforcement Unit was created due to the significant increase of visitors to Fort Morgan, but that his deputies are recent a partial training to “provide them with a basic knowledge of water rescues, should an emergency or as a last resort (should) they have to enter the water or assist another rescuer. Their primary duties are law enforcement.”

He added, “Our deputies were never intended to be lifeguards or rescue swimmers.”

Mack said that patrolling the beaches is only a portion of the overall duties for the Coastal Enforcement Unit.

“They still work traffic on Fort Morgan Road and adjacent roads, answer calls for service and activity patrol neighborhoods,” Mack said. “As with any areas of training, we continue to pursue additional training for our deputies.”

Mack said there has been some discussion about seeking additional funding for coastal enforcement, but that no decisions have been made.

“Of course, the reason we started this program and continue to develop it, is due to the significant increase of visitors along this area,” Mack said. “It will be a challenge for our agency and all other public safety to rise to meet that demand.”

Mack said that his agency is also assisted by the fire and police agencies in Gulf Shore in developing a “beach patrol portion of the coastal enforcement program.”

He said that school resource officers, who are currently out of school for the summer season, are supplementing coverage during high volume periods. Ten SRO’s will be rotating on and off Fort Morgan, and they will be partnered with the agencies’ Coastal Enforcement Unit deputies.

Baldwin County Sheriff’s Captain Tony Nolfe said the SROs have “some training on use of the issued equipment and on spotting for the (Coastal Enforcement Unit) deputies if they had to go in the water.” The county increased its number of SROs, and stationed one at each of Baldwin County’s 46 campuses in 2018, following that year’s massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The department also purchased line launches, which are often used by the Coast Guard during water rescues. The launchers are a self-inflating life ring attached to a line that extends “well over 100 yards,” Nolfe said. He said the department also has a drone that will drop a self-inflating life ring.

Mack said the biggest challenge remains with vacationers “who enter the water without checking the weather or surf conditions.”

And those vacationers are coming in droves.

“We do expect a record year this year,” he said.

Delmore said the messaging and communication has been more proactive this year than in prior years. But he said the rise in tourists lead to more people unaware of how dangerous the Gulf can be.

Delmore, himself a lifelong law enforcement officer, said even trained personnel can be unaware of a situation if they are unfamiliar with an area.

He recalls a personal trip he took to Hawaii when he and his father-in-law, upon entering the water from a beach they were at, were approached by lifeguard who told them, “that’s a bad idea.”

“We didn’t know any better at the time and the guy probably saved our lives,” said Delmore, who was working with a law enforcement agency in the Midwest at the time. “We were a couple of guys, at the time, from the Midwest and had no clue what we were getting ourselves into.”

He added, “The more we can do, the better.”

Coming Monday: An incident report by the Gulf Shores Police Department on the drowning death of Bill Smith reveals some of the holes in addressing emergencies of an area surrounded by the often dangerous surf of the Gulf of Mexico.

Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.

Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your California Privacy Rights (User Agreement updated 1/1/21. Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement updated 5/1/2021).

© 2022 Advance Local Media LLC. All rights reserved (About Us). The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local.

Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site.