GALVESTON, Texas — Memorial Day weekend is one of the biggest beach weekends of the year along the Texas Coast but dangerous rip currents have caused some Houston-area beaches to close.
Brazoria County beaches are closed for the holiday weekend.
Juan Maldanado says he has been selling fruit on Quintana beach for years and has not seen the beach closed for such a popular holiday weekend.
“I know the beach is closed,” Maldanado said. “No people [are] coming to me. No matter papa, some days you have a lot of people coming, some day[s] [it’s] regular.”
Visitors who had planned a day at the beach were dismayed when they arrived to the roadblocks outside of their destination.
“It’s just a public beach I thought we’d be able to come,” said one man who had come from Porter to Quintana Beach with his girlfriend. “We thought we’d get here and head to the beach and everything.”
After being on the road for an hour-and-a-half – they’re not ready to head back home.
On Galveston Island lifeguards keep watch over the swimmers during the red flag warning.
The water is choppy but visitors don’t seem to mind.
Crowds continued to make their ways to the sand Saturday as the hours passed.
Residents on the Bolivar Peninsula are hoping the holiday weekend is not like last weekend.
“Memorial weekend is typically the heaviest weekend on the Bolivar Peninsula, and we could have the same event as last weekend,” said Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset. “It could look exactly the same.”
Sheriff Trochesset said Friday a full staff of deputies would be working overtime on the Bolivar Peninsula Memorial Day weekend.
This was after thousands of partiers showed up to Crystal Beach last weekend for “Go Topless Jeep Weekend.”
“They were totally out of control, like nobody knows how to behave anymore, they think it’s all open range,” said Crystal Beach resident Dino Hawk. “They can do whatever they want whenever they want however they want.”
Deputies made more than 100 arrests on the peninsula in two days.
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