Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Public pools across the City of Buffalo are officially open for swimmers looking to cool down in the sweltering Western New York heat.
All six pools in Buffalo - five outdoors and one indoors - opened on Wednesday, as temperatures over the next several days are expected to reach the mid-to-upper 80s, and the heat index reaching well into the 90s and even the 100s.
With city pools coming online Wednesday, the city has also extended splash pads hours as another way to help residents keep cool for the rest of the week.
"It's hot out here, and it's Buffalo. So this is when we enjoy this. We're gonna take it for granted right now, but let's enjoy what we have," said Stephen Buccilli, interim parks commissioner for the City of Buffalo. "We have our pools or our splash pads, and one thing that I've told my staff as we're playing with our timers at our splash pads, moving forward for the next week, our splash pads will stay on until 8 o'clock. So splash pads will run from 11 a.m.-to-8 p.m., pools are 11 a.m.-to-7 p.m."
Over the last couple of weeks, the city has been working to get its pools online and ready for the barrage of residents and others looking for ways to cool down.
"We've been bringing on extra contractors and my pool staff to address as many things as we could. Most of our pools were ready to be opened, we've had the health department come through our facilities and look at them. There's still work to be done, long-term capital, but we feel we're ready to open the pools that we've identified on the city website," Buccilli said with WBEN.
Buccilli admits he'll be interested to see not just how opening day will be at pools, but also the rest of the week as conditions will remain oppressively hot.
"We're going to be hopefully in the hundreds of people, most of our pools are in that range of 200-to-300," Buccilli said. "We will have capacity limits that our park supervisor is working with our new lifeguards, so everybody's aware of that. We also have security - two security people will be at each facility, one on the pool deck and one actually in the pool buildings to help."
A couple weeks ago, the city announced it is implementing a new free pool ID program to help staff better manage facilities, improve safety and accountability, and ensure city resources are directed where they are most needed. Beginning this summer, all residents wishing to use city pools will be required to obtain a free digital pool ID.
Residents can register online or in-person at any pool location with proof of identification. Children under 18-years-old must be registered by a parent or guardian.
Buccilli is stressing residents and anyone else hoping to take advantage of city pools to be registered for the pool ID program ahead of time.
"On the city website, create a login, register as the parent or guardian for your family. And then we will also be bringing in additional staff at each of our facilities to help with the queuing of people that have the ID, and people that still need to sign up," he said.
"We have roughly over 700 people that have signed up so far. In advance of the rush of people coming tomorrow, we will staff additional staffers from City Hall and from the pools for our lifeguards to help register people. We're gonna have multiple lines set up, probably 2-to-3 at each facility, where if you have your ID card, you just scan, get your photo checked one time and you're good to go. If you need to have it, we will ask you to come to the side and will have tablets ready for parents and guardians to do this."
Buccilli estimates the process to sign up for the pool ID program takes between 5-to-10 minutes online.
And pools cannot open this year without the help of lifeguards on staff to ensure the safety of all poolgoers this summer.
"Safety is paramount, and honestly, with our programming with our lifeguards, we're hoping to improve on that," Buccilli noted. "From last year, roughly 77 guards were on staff with the city. With the mayor's outreach and our social media campaign, we currently have 86 guards ready to work with another 12 guards in the process."
Buccilli adds it's great to see the number of lifeguards available for the city increasing, but hopes to continue that upward trend.
"Working with City Swims, we've identified that there needs to be a pipeline, and we need to come up with reasons and ways to keep people on staff that want to be lifeguards," he noted. "Our retention rate is 60%, I would love to increase that. Talking with the local municipalities, most are in the 80-to-90% retention from year-to-year. I need to do a better job. I'm looking into programs and ways that we can enhance our lifeguard retention."
More information about city pools and splash pads can be found on the city's website:
