Posted by Jean Bolduc | Jul 21, 2022 | Columns, This Just In, Town Square

This Just In – It’s shark week! No, I don’t mean it’s lawyer appreciation week, I’m talking about the swimmy things that local TV news operations depend on to scare the hell out of everyone going to the beach for a week… talking about reported bites of vacationing swimmers and so on.

I re-watched “Jaws” this past week and it’s amazing how well this classic holds up. Even as a young director, Spielberg made an announcement about his style of directing and his problem solving in telling this amazingly simple story about a great white appearing on the New England coast on July 4th weekend.

The public safety official wants to close the beaches and keep everyone completely safe – the “no risk” model. The mayor wants to keep the beaches open and not discuss the matter further, exposing everyone to the highest risk – that of not knowing how to modify their behavior.

In making the movie, Spielberg had problems of his own. The shark (affectionately named “Bruce”) constructed for those scary shark attack scenes was not working at all. Spielberg had a schedule and couldn’t waste the shooting days waiting for the fix, so he made a critical adjustment that turned out to provide a signature style in his moviemaking. He would keep the scary shark just out of sight – referenced, but not seen until late in the story.

He didn’t invent this, of course, Hitchcock would probably deserve that credit, but Spielberg’s long career of filmmaking demonstrates that with Jaws, he took an ordinary thing (swimming at the beach) and made it a scary, scary thing.

Our response to stories of one-in-a-million risk is predictable, but the shark thing … wow. It’s amazing.

Over the last decade, there have been between 35-55 shark bites per year. About half of these occurred in Florida and almost half occurred in Hawaii. From those bites, there have been eight deaths across 10 years.

Honestly, if the local TV folks want to help you be safe in the ocean, here’s what they should talk about: the water.

Yeah, really. The water. You’re much more likely to get in trouble in the ocean because of rip currents than Bruce (or any other shark). More than 100 people drown every year because of rip currents.

While you should be alert to feeding times and patterns of shark activity, many more people are hurt or drown because they are caught in rip currents and don’t know what to do. They become exhausted trying to swim into shore the way they swam out. Here are some tips from the National Weather Service:

That’s the key, recognizing what’s happening and CALLING FOR HELP. To the NWS list I would add that having a whistle (tied around your wrist or on a necklace) can help you summon assistance if you need it (like Rose did with the policeman’s whistle toward the end of Titanic). There’s a lot of droning sound at the ocean and a whistle can cut right through it.

With climate changes comes surf that can be rougher and rougher, even without storms in the area. Stay alert. Supervise kids in the surf with your full attention, then get out there and have a blast!

Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.

Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc

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