What every host, parent, and guest should know before the first splash
Frieda Schweky
Every summer, the community’s center of gravity shifts. Families pack up from Brooklyn and head to the Jersey Shore. Backyards with pools become the backdrop for nearly everything – playdates, birthday parties, engagement parties, casual weeknight hangouts, and everything in between. With that shift comes a lot more time spent in and around water. Before the season gets underway, it’s worth talking seriously about pool safety.
Drowning Incidents
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an average of roughly 370 children under age 15 die in pool or spa-related drownings every year in the United States, and thousands more are treated in emergency rooms for nonfatal drowning injuries. The overwhelming majority of these incidents involve children younger than five, and most happen not at public pools with lifeguards, but at private, residential pools – often during ordinary, unplanned moments rather than scheduled swim time.
Research shows that most child drowning victims were out of sight for five minutes or less before they were found, and the large majority were not even expected to be near water at the time. Drowning is also silent. Unlike what is often shown in movies, a child in trouble in the water typically can’t call out or splash for help – their body is using whatever energy it has just trying to keep its airway above the surface. That means a drowning can happen within arm’s reach of a group of adults, without anyone noticing until it’s too late.
Most pool drownings happen during the summer months, and during the day. The hours between 12pm and 6pm see the most incidents – exactly the time when backyards tend to be busiest. Weekends and holidays see a noticeable spike as well, driven by the simple fact that more people, more children, and more distractions are gathered in one place at the same time. And having adults present is not the same as having a designated, undistracted watcher. Data from Safe Kids Worldwide has found that the vast majority of children who drowned had an adult somewhere nearby at the time. Presence alone does not prevent tragedy – active attention does.
For a community that spends a concentrated stretch of summer clustered around pools – often including multiple households, multiple ages, and multiple gatherings a week – these numbers are not abstract. They are a call to build safety habits into the rhythm of the season, the same way sunscreen and pool floats already are.
Layers of Protection
Pool safety organizations generally recommend thinking in terms of layers, since no single precaution is foolproof on its own.
Barriers: A four-sided fence with a self-closing, self-latching gate – separate from the house itself – is one of the most effective tools available. Research has found that homes with a properly installed four-sided isolation fence see dramatically fewer drownings than homes with no fence or a fence that uses the house as one of its sides. Pool covers and gate or door alarms add additional protection, particularly for households with young children or frequent young visitors.
Supervision: Assign a “water watcher” any time children are in or near the pool – one adult whose only job, for a set period, is watching the water. No phone, no conversation, no drink refills. Because supervision fatigue is real, especially at longer gatherings, rotate the role every 15 to 20 minutes rather than assuming one person can hold focus for hours.
Equipment: Keep life jackets, a shepherd’s hook, a throw rope or rescue tube, and a stocked first aid kit within easy reach of the pool – not in a garage or shed. These tools are only useful if they can be grabbed in seconds.
Water Competency: Swim lessons remain one of the most effective long-term investments in a child’s safety. Even strong swimmers benefit from ongoing lessons, since panic, exhaustion, or a sudden injury can affect anyone in the water.
Emergency Preparedness: Know CPR. Keep a charged phone at poolside. And post a sign near the pool with the direct emergency number for Hatzalah of the Jersey Shore – (732) 531-9988 (or the local Hatzalah in your area) – along with the pool’s exact address. In an emergency, seconds spent searching for a phone number or fumbling to describe a location are seconds that matter. A visible, permanent sign with the house number is a simple step every pool-owning household in the community can take before the season starts.
Additional Precautions
Beyond the core layers of protection, a handful of smaller habits go a long way.
Diving and Depth Awareness – Guests, especially teenagers, should know exactly how deep a pool is before jumping or diving in. Head and spinal injuries from diving into shallow water are entirely preventable with a quick check beforehand and clear signage marking depth.
Drains and Entrapment – Make sure pool drains have compliant, up-to-date covers, and teach children to stay away from drains, pipes, and other openings where suction can trap hair, swimsuits, or limbs. If a drain cover looks cracked, loose, or missing, the pool should not be used until the drain cover is fixed.
Weather – Clear the pool at the first sign of thunder or lightning, and do not let anyone back in until at least 30 minutes after the last rumble. Water conducts electricity, and an approaching storm is not worth waiting out poolside.
Alcohol – Adults supervising children or swimming themselves should be mindful that alcohol slows reaction time and impairs judgment in the water just as it does behind the wheel. If drinks are part of a gathering, it is worth keeping the water watcher role assigned to someone who is not drinking.
Inflatables and Toys – Pool floats, noodles, and inflatable toys are fun, but they are not safety devices and should not be treated as substitutes for a life jacket or active supervision, especially for children who are not yet strong swimmers.
Non-Swimming Teens and Adults – It’s easy to assume that anyone old enough to be at a teen or adult gathering can swim well enough to handle themselves in the water, but swimming ability varies widely at every age. A quick, casual check of who’s comfortable in deep water – without singling anyone out – can prevent an awkward situation from becoming a dangerous one.
Nighttime Swimming – Pools that are lit and used after dark should have working lighting both in and around the water. Depth, obstacles, and distressed swimmers are all harder to spot at night, so evening gatherings call for extra vigilance.
Proper Supervision
A backyard with three children and two attentive parents is a very different environment than a backyard hosting forty guests for a simha. It helps to think about supervision differently depending on the size of the gathering.
Small, Family-Style Gatherings (under 10 people): It is tempting to assume that with so few people around, someone is always watching kids in the pool. In practice, this is often the type of situation when supervision lapses happen, because everyone assumes someone else has it covered. Designate the water watcher explicitly, out loud, so there is no ambiguity.
Mid-Sized Gatherings (10–30 people). This is often the highest-risk category, since there are enough children in the water to make tracking difficult, but not necessarily enough structure to assign clear roles. Consider designating two water watchers on rotating shifts, and do a headcount of children in and around the pool every 15 minutes or so.
Large Events (30+ people) At this scale, informal supervision breaks down almost entirely. Hosts should consider hiring a certified lifeguard for the duration of pool access, closing the pool to swimming during parts of the event when supervision cannot be guaranteed, or roping off pool access if it is not the focus of the gathering. A closed or covered pool during a large event removes the risk altogether without anyone needing to actively monitor it.
A Season Worth Protecting
The Jersey Shore summer is one of the best parts of the community calendar – a season built around family, connection, and a lot of pool time. None of these precautions are meant to dampen that. They are meant to make sure every one of these summers ends the way it is supposed to: with good memories, not close calls.
Sources: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) drowning and injury reports; CDC WISQARS data; Thompson & Rivara, New England Journal of Medicine, on pool fence effectiveness; S.P.L.A.S.H. (Safety Pool Layered Awareness for a Safer Home), a local water safety organization; Hatzalah of the Jersey Shore.