Palm Beach County Property Appraiser Gary Nikolits is happy to announce an innovative water safety program in association with the Drowning Prevention Coalition of Palm Beach County.
“Our deputy appraisers will place pool safety door tags on residential properties with pools,” Nikolits explained.
May is National Water Safety Month, noted Anna Stewart, manager of the Drowning Prevention Coalition. The door tags list water safety tips for people in single-family homes with pools.
“We are very pleased that the Property Appraiser’s Office is helping provide public information about pool safety in our effort to prevent drowning and to encourage water safety,” Stewart said.
The partnership between the Property Appraiser’s Office and the Drowning Prevention Coalition is the first of its kind. “We look at it as a valuable community service that our deputy appraisers can help spread the word about pool safety to the public,” Nikolits said.
To kick off May’s pool safety campaign, the deputy appraisers will distribute 500 door tags in neighborhoods countywide.
The door tags are produced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and provided courtesy of the CPSC’s pool safety campaign.
“Our best advice is to make sure everyone knows how to swim and never swims alone,” Stewart said, adding that pools should be fenced to prevent easy access.
Contact the Drowning Prevention Coalition at (561) 616-7068 or www.pbcgov.org/dpc for facilities that offer swimming lessons.
April and May are the months most likely to see increases in drowning. In 2012, nine people drowned in a pool in Palm Beach County. Fortunately that is a decline from 2009, when 13 people drowned in a pool.
