GARDEN CITY, S.C. (WBTW) — Following the 2022 death of North Carolina visitor Tammy Perreault in Garden City, safety officials established ASTM F3681, a national standard requiring beach umbrella anchors to withstand at least 75 pounds of pulling force.
Perreault died from her injuries after a windblown beach umbrella impaled her. Investigators used details gathered from her fatal accident as the foundation for the new safety standard to prevent loose umbrellas from taking flight.
Bill Schermerhorn, president of BeachBUB USA and chairman of the ASTM Beach Umbrella Safety Committee, spent nearly two years working on umbrella safety before the fatal incident. He explained that placing an umbrella pole deeper into the sand does not keep it from taking flight.
“If you’re not using an anchor, if you’re sticking a pole, no matter what depth you’re doing it, it may help in tipping over, but it does nothing to prevent it from flying up,” Schermerhorn said, noting that wind passing over an umbrella canopy creates aerodynamic lift.
The findings from the crash investigation were incorporated directly into the creation of ASTM F3681. “And someday we hope to actually put this in the honor, this standard, in the honor of Tammy. We would love to do that,” Schermerhorn said.
The safety standard requires anchors to withstand 75 pounds of force, but Schermerhorn said the system designed by his company exceeds that threshold. His company, BeachBUB, makes every umbrella designed with one mission: to be the safest, most secure umbrella on the beach. BeachBUB umbrellas can withstand up to 125 pounds of force.
In addition to standardizing anchor strength, Schermerhorn’s team has focused on public education. Warning signs created alongside federal safety engineers have been donated to beach communities around the world. Similar signs were offered to Horry County and redesigned following initial feedback regarding the graphics, though local officials never responded to the offer.
All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by WBTW. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat information into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by WBTW staff before being published.
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