Tubers on the Comal River will soon be supervised by remote cameras. The city council approved the installation of the system. Russell Wilde shows us why not everyone thinks it's needed.
Cooling off on the Comal River is a New Braunfels tradition.
"There water is as good as I've ever seen it. I've been doing it 21 years and the water is probably as high and flowing as well as I've ever seen it," says Colie Reno of Texas Tubes.
Crowds have been good—sometimes too good.
"And I'm talking like 500 to 1,000 people just in this little area and 20 minutes later, it's a different 500 to 1,000 people," says New Braunfels Police Department Chief Tom Wibert.
The city is installing a camera system to keep an eye on the situation.
"One of our concerns is, from a safety basis, moving people out of the river, up the stairs, across the street and on to shuttle buses," says Wilbert.
Not everyone's sold on the idea, though.
"They won't help me at all. I won't use them. If I'm going to have somebody sitting there looking at a camera I might as well have them down there helping people out of the river," Reno says.
The cameras will not record but will stream live video accessible only to police and tubing companies.
"It's a set of eyes for us and so if we get a call about a fight or something going on the officer who is on his way here can actually log in from the police car and take a look," Wilbert says.
Police hope that will help keep people moving and stop problems before they start.
"It will help alert us to bad behavior and I think when people see the cameras, it may help to prevent that bad behavior also," Wilbert says.
It's all in hopes of keeping people safer while they cool off.