A Florida sheriff, faced with a spate of deaths because parents didn't get their children out of the water during stormy "double red flag" (beach closed to swimming) conditions, is assessing $500 fines on bereaved parents who have lost their children to drowning.
OK, I get the motivation, but it strikes me that the bereaved parents have (I hope) already lost something too precious to them for words, so the extra $500 fine seems like a bit of "piling on". That noted, I would be entirely in favor of fining non-bereaved parents when they fail to get their children out of the water, or adults who fail to vacate. Lifeguards do, after all, occasionally get injured or killed rescuing foolish swimmers, and EMTs note that it's traumatic to pull a needlessly dead body out of the water. (an EMT friend of mine went on disability because of PTSD this way)
And I don't know exactly what's going on--perhaps it has something to do with hyperbolic responses to COVID--but it troubles me that many people seem to have no grasp of likely consequences today. The notion "rescue workers aren't putting these signs up for their health" seems to escape too many people today.
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