GULF SHORES, Ala. — As the time for staff reports came during Monday’s Gulf Shores City Council meeting, an encouraged and hopeful Hartly Brokenshaw sat waiting for his turn to talk.

Members of the city’s lifeguard and fire service had spent a busy two days rescuing swimmers in distress and sometimes recovering victims in both Gulf Shores and Fort Morgan waters.

As recently as 1 p.m. Monday afternoon a swimmer who went out to help another person in distress had been claimed by the Gulf on the city’s eastern beaches. On Sunday three drownings were reported on Fort Morgan beaches.

But now the waters were closed. Mayor Robert Craft ordered double red flags to fly meaning no one was allowed in the waters.

Fire Chief Brokenshaw found this encouraging news. Until right before he was asked if he had a staff report.

“I was sitting here and everything was going real good and … we’ve got another swimmer in distress,” Brokenshaw said.

The call received while sitting in the meeting had an obvious disheartening effect on the veteran firefighter.

“I thought I was going to get up here and say, ‘we’ve closed the beaches, everything’s fine now,” he said. “It’s not. It didn’t work. I believe this is how it’s always going to be and we’re doing everything we can do and I don’t think there’s any more than we can do than what we’ve done right now.”

Warren H. Moore, 62, of Jonesboro, Ark., was pulled under by the strong currents after he tried to save a woman in distress just west of the Gulf State Pier near the Royal Palms condo on Monday.

Matthew Hattaway, 25, of Bossier, La., John Hogue of Overland Park, Kan., 50 and Joshua Kimbrough, 34, of Bowling Green, Ky., were drowning victims off of Fort Morgan on Sunday.

Yellow flags returned to Pleasure Island beaches on Tuesday and Brokenshaw said the next effort would be to push more education.

“The two things that we have finally decided and looked at is the flag system, make sure everyone knows the flag system,” he said. “And the next thing, how to get out of it if you are in it. I don’t like that second option, but that’s the one we’ve got to push the most. It’s that education that we’ve really got to push.

“I don’t know any more we can do. We’ve closed the beaches. This happened. There’s not an answer to it. We’ve done everything, y’all have done everything that can be done to stop this from happening.”

City spokesperson Grant Brown spent part of his Monday talking to as many media outlets as possible to warn and inform people going to the Gulf.

“If you’re going to go in the water, particularly if you’re going to go into the water to give some assistance to somebody, take something that floats with you,” Brown said. “Take a boogie board, a raft, a noodle, a whatever, get something with you just don’t run out there to save someone without anything. Grab something so you don’t end up getting rescued. And keep your eyes on your family, old or young. If you’re on shore and you’re not going to be the one in the water, watch your family. Don’t let them get too far out.”

Brokenshaw said the type of rip currents on Sunday and Monday prompt the most calls for distressed swimmers because from the beach the Gulf looks calm.

“When a storm’s here, people have the sense, the water’s rough, they don’t want to get in it,” he said. “If you were to go down there right now and look at that water, there’s not a white cap on it. It lulls people into going out like that.

“The same thing happened 15 years ago. The water looks just like it looks right now and we lost three people in 30 minutes.”

Craft said if it comes down to it, he would close the waters again in similar situations.

“When we have evidence that we have multiple people in trouble, we’re just going to have to close the beaches,” he said. “It’s not a decision we want to make, but we cannot let that happen again to guests that are coming here that really don’t know how severe the risk is.”