You may want to stay out of the water at this Fort Lauderdale beach, authorities warn
If you were thinking about taking a Christmas morning swim at the beach just north of Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, don’t do it.
The Department of Health in Broward County issued a no-swim advisory Tuesday for the beach across the street from Birch State Park in Fort Lauderdale because of high bacteria levels.
That is the only beach in Broward that did not meet state requirements when samples of the water were collected and tested, the department said.
The warning will be in effect at least until Friday when the results from new samples will be available.
As part of Florida’s Healthy Beaches Program, water at beaches across the state is tested regularly to see if the levels of bacteria are too high.
“Certain bacteria could create unhealthy beach water conditions and may cause swimming-related gastroenteritis,” the department said in a news release. However, it did not say which bacteria the testing found to be at a high level.
Late Tuesday, Fort Lauderdale said beaches to the “north and south of Birch State Park were normal, which may indicate that this is an isolated incident associated with the unusually heavy rain event that took place in the early hours of Monday morning.”
For more information visit http://www.floridahealth.gov/environmental-health/beach-water-quality/index.html.
This story was originally published December 25, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
