SAN ANTONIO — The unofficial start to Summer, the Memorial Day weekend is almost upon us, and New Braunfels is expecting a massive influx of people to the Comal River to beat the heat.
Officials say thanks to recent rains, the river is flowing well and they're excited for the kickoff to the season this weekend, with safety being top of mind.
Chad Donegan, the New Braunfels Parks and Recreation Director told us, "We've gone through an extensive hiring this summer for rangers and also for our lifeguards and also for our cashiers, to make sure that we're there, we're staffed and that we're ready to have a great influx of people this summer to come and enjoy our rivers."
Neal Linnartz, the Mayor of New Braunfels added, "We have many, many outfitters that have the shuttles and the tubes and they're ready to get people on the river and get them off and make sure that they have a good time."
Following the rules is a must to play it safe. "You want to make sure that you are following the non-disposable container ban, that you're bringing stuff that is allowable on the rivers. We would also suggest that if you are not a strong swimmer, that you utilize our lifejacket program. We have free lifejackets," said Donegan.
And if you are planning to take it easy on the water like all of these floaters, and you've never done it before, make sure you know where you're getting in and where you're getting out. "We get phone calls in our office quite often. They think that sometimes that the Comal River is like a lazy river and that it just circles back around, but it is not," Donegan said.
But if a slow ride in an innertube down the cool Comal isn't your thing, there's plenty of other things to do in town.
Mayor Linnartz told us, "We want to entertain everybody that that comes here. We've got a lot of great restaurants. If they get off the river and they still want to do outdoor activities, we've got Schlitterbahn, Natural Bridge Caverns. We've got Gruene."
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