re: The Hoe is loaded & the front gate is locked.....

quote:

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MY BODY IS READY FOR FRAT BEACH

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First off, no its not

Secondly, I saw an article they are moving it up to the coast guard station due to tide levels and trash. Can you confirm?

LINK

ST. SIMONS ISLAND - Georgia’s largest beach cocktail party on the eve of the Florida-Georgia game has been moved a little north because Friday’s high tide will put the traditional site underwater at the afternoon peak of the celebration, officials say.

Thousands of University of Georgia students and others in the area for the game typically come for “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” and have an alcohol sodden afternoon beach party with a lot of drinking near condo complexes where many stay. This year, the county wants to move the festivities north toward the Coast Guard station where there is more dry beach at high tide, said Capt. Jay Wiggins, director of Emergency Management for Glynn County.

Glynn County made the decision to move the site and are hopeful the students will follow the music from a live radio broadcast and congregate there, Wiggins said.

Last year, an estimated 8,000 students last year gathered at what they call “Frat Beach.” There are no organizers, but word passes through social media, and the students gather through the afternoon. In 2013, most of the party-goers lugged big plastic bottles and jugs filled with alcoholic drinks, usually vodka based.

“The area they usually congregate in is just not conducive to what they want to do. They’ll have more time on the beach’’ at the Coast Guard station, Wiggins said.

The East Beach access has a wide wooden crossover that can support vehicles, which provides much better emergency access, and EMTs are called upon every year, he said.

“People get dehydrated or get sick from the heat,’’ Wiggins said.

Wiggins didn’t say so, but there were calls last year to people passed out.

The students also drop a lot of trash on the beach. Lea King-Badyna, executive director of Keep Brunswick-Golden Isles Beautiful, is organizing a cadre of volunteers to patrol parking lots the day of the event and a beach and parking lot sweep beginning at 7:30 a.m. on game day.

Last year, 175 volunteers picked up 21,000 pounds of litter, King-Badyna said.

This year’s will be the seventh game day beach sweep.

Asked why there’s so much litter, King-Badyna said somewhat diplomatically, “There are a lot of trash receptacles for the people to use and they’re just not used.”

At times the county has brought in a bulldozer to push the trash into piles above the reach of the tide to keep it from washing out to sea. That leaves the volunteers to dig through mounds of sand and litter the next day to bag up the trash.

Officials hope that any litter will be above the reach of the tide, or better still, put in one of the hundreds of trash depositories.

King-Badyna was busy Tuesday traveling to motels and condo complexes handing out flyers that fans will get when they check in. The flyers have a Jack Davis painting of a Georgia Bulldog standing in a pile of trash saying, “A little help here.”

Joining Keep Brunswick-Golden Isles Beautiful are Glynn County, Green Scene of Coastal Georgia, Brunswick Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce and the Department of Natural Resources’ Coastal Resources Division.

The UGa Marine Extension Service, Georgia Sea Grants and the UGa Office of Public Service and Outreach will also help. Georgia’s Psi Kappa Psi fraternity has helped with the cleanup for three years running, King-Badyna said.

Among the litter are plastic bottles, cans, cigarette butts and cheap plastic foam coolers. Starting Thursday, Parker’s convenience stores will take those foam coolers and swap them out with a biodegradable Georgia-theme cooler made of cardboard.

Plastic can cause a lot of problems in the ocean, said Katy Smith, the coordinator of the Marine Extension Service’s Water Quality Program.

Among the biggest problems is plastic bags that sea turtles and other marine animals mistake for jelly fish, Smith said. Eating them can kill and they can also entangle marine life, she said.

As the plastic breaks down it releases harmful chemicals that can get into the food chain, Smith said.

There will be an effort through the same social media that announces the party site to ask the revelers to pick up their trash. And the radio stations will stop the music occasionally and ask people to at least pick up the trash at their feet, she said.

Smith said she and others will be walking the beach at the water’s edge trying to grab anything they can before the tide gets it.

Litter control isn’t the only joint effort.

The Georgia State Patrol and Glynn County lifeguards will help on the beach and the U.S. Coast Guard and Georgia DNR rangers will have boats off the beach.

The worry, Wiggins said, is that someone will get out on a sandbar and get trapped by the incoming tide.

“We’re glad to have them, but we want them to be safe,’’ Wiggins said.

high 50, low 31 Saturday in Atlanta.....

literally, FREEZING.