Nation’s Summer Capital ready for Summer 2018 kickoff

Employees for Delaware's largest summer resort - also known as The Nation's Summer Capital - work all winter and into the spring to get ready for Memorial Day weekend.

Whether it's Boardwalk benches, seasonal police officers, street crews, a full complement of parking meters, lifeguards for the ocean beaches or free Bandstand concerts, Rehoboth Beach has the table set.

"We're ready for the kickoff to the summer," said Krys Johnson this week. She serves as communications director for the city.

The iconic, flipping-back benches that line the Boardwalk, Rehoboth Avenue and the first couple blocks of Baltimore and Wilmington avenues gleam with fresh white paint. Johnson said there are 85 of the benches. And they're not the only thing sporting fresh paint for the holiday weekend.

Johnson said contractors are putting the finishing touches on a complete repainting of the Bandstand. In a number of different iterations, the Bandstand has been hosting live and free entertainment every summer since 1963. This year's 40-concert series will open Saturday, May 26, at 8 p.m. with a performance by the Eagles tribute band Desert Highway. The series will continue through Sept. 1. See the Cape Gazette's free Beach Paper each week for information on who will be playing.

A 15-17-member streets crew - including seasonal workers - is ready to keep the beaches, streets and Boardwalk clean for residents and visitors, and the trash cans empty. "The summer schedules are out and they will be working seven days a week to keep the city clean," said Johnson.

All 1,564 parking meters are in place and will be fully operational starting May 25. The meters are a major funding source for the city, which uses proceeds to help supplement revenues needed to pay for all the services required by residents and hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Johnson noted that the Deauville Beach parking lot will be open for Memorial Day weekend. It has been closed for the last several months while it was used as a staging area for the ocean outfall project nearing completion. Once complete, sometime in the next two weeks, that project will take treated wastewater from Rehoboth's facility and send it by pipe 6,000 feet out into the ocean for discharge. Johnson said the wastewater is being treated to the highest level available with current technology.

This week, crews are testing pipes that will be delivering the treated wastewater from the canalside facility on the southwest side of town to the outfall pipe at Deauville Beach. Millions of dollars' worth of upgrades to the treatment plant have been made in the past several months. "I've already seen increases in the wastewater quality as a result," said Johnson. "We're ready to go. I think the only thing we need now is a little drier weather." After more than four inches of rain last weekend, and Sussex rainfall running about two inches above normal at this point in the year, Johnson won't be getting any argument on that point.

Rehoboth's ambassadors ready, too

Police Chief Keith Banks said his team is excited for the start of another season in Rehoboth. "Our 22 seasonal officers have been trained, and are eager and ready. They're mostly college students doing internships, gaining life experiences, seeing if this is really what they want to do with their lives."

Banks said law enforcement is not the primary focus of the police department as it was at one time. "In our training, I emphasize that we are ambassadors for the city. We're here to help answer questions, point the way to restrooms, find medical services if necessary. That's the biggest part of the job. At the end of the season, many of our summer officers tell us the biggest thing they learned was how to be better communicators."

The seasonal officers work with 17 full-time officers. "We want to be out there and be seen. This year we've changed up how we're positioning our officers. We will be on the Boardwalk, and we will have one officer designated to be in the bus and Jolly Trolley loading and unloading area where the Boardwalk and Rehoboth Avenue meet. We want to make sure all of that transitioning is handled safely and be there to answer questions," said Banks.

He said the largest concentration of police officers will be deployed on weekends and at night. There will be a bicycle officer on each of four shifts and a secondary bicycle officer who can be brought in for shifts as needed. "We will have one of them working the morning dog patrol - that's around the beach to make sure people are keeping their dogs on their leashes. And we also watch out for bicycle violations - mainly people on the Boardwalk with their bicycles after 10 a.m. We just give out warnings to people for those things - just let them know our rules."

Banks said depending on weather, he would expect 40,000 to 45,000 people in the city for Memorial Day weekend. "Then on weekends up until the Fourth of July the highs will be in the 50,000 to 60,000 range. From July 4th on through the middle of August, when schools start reopening, we prepare to deal with 85,000 to 100,000 people."

That's a lot of people, a lot of questions to be answered, and a lot of effort needed to keep it all working smoothly. No wonder it takes all winter and spring to get ready.