Officials are urging people to be safe this Memorial Day weekend. County Sheriff Jim Quattrone announced the “STOP-DWI High Visibility Engagement Campaign for Memorial Day and Weekend.” The campaign will take place from May 28th until June 1st. Quattrone said it’s a locally driven program with all Chautauqua County law enforcement agencies participating and working together; police departments, state police and the Sheriff’s Office coordinating awareness, education and enforcement activities.
County Executive PJ Wendel urged people not to drink and drive, “If you need to, get an Uber, get Lyft, find someone to drive, but you don’t want to jeopardize yourself. It’s costly and at the end of the day you don’t want to be the result of someone else’s actions or causing someone’s injury or life.”
Wendel said water safety is also a big issue, “You realize when you’re a kayaker you can see every boat but not every boat sees you. So we asking that, we do have these new experiences. We have paddleboards and different slower recreational activities for Chautauqua Lake that we really need to pay close attention to, not to mention jet skis and powerboats as well. Everyone this weekend especially needs to be careful on our lakes and waterways.”
American Red Cross Regional Communications Manager Meg Rossman said the Red Cross wants everyone, before they get in the water to be, “water smart,” “We want to prevent unsupervised access to water certainly by fencing in pools and spas, keeping an constant eye out for any water dangers and really designating a water watcher to keep a close eye and constant attention on small children and pets, and even weaker swimmers.”
Rossman said grilling is becoming more popular, but it sparks more than 10,000 home fires each year. She said a grill should always be supervised and that no one should use a grill indoors, “You know, I know the weather might be a little chillier than we were kind of hoping for this weekend, but certainly we don’t want it in any enclosed area like a house or a camper even. And while you’re doing that, we want to be sure small children and pets are staying away from the grill to avoid any injury.”
For information on free water safety courses, first aid training courses and more, visit redcross.org.
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