Southern Hills Pool Still Shut Down While the City Waits on Concrete Trucks

The clock is ticking for the Shreveport city pools run for this summer. Sunday is the final day for most of the pools that have been open this summer.

SPAR Director Shelly Ragle has told the Shreveport City Council the Southern Hills pool is still not open. Ragle says the problem is getting the concrete delivered to the site. Ragle says the next possible date to get another truck loaded with concrete is on August 3. She did say there is a chance a truck could come on Friday.

KEEL News stopped off at the Southern Hills pool on Monday to find half of the deck has been poured, but the other half still needs concrete.

She says once the concrete is poured, they will turn the pool on and get it opened.

Shreveport Pool Locations

AIRPORT PARK
6500 Kennedy Street
Shreveport, LA 71108

BILL COCKRELL
4109 Pines Road
Shreveport, LA 71109

DAVID RAINES PARK
2920 Round Grove Lane
Shreveport, LA 71108

QUERBES PARK
3500 Beverly Place
Shreveport, LA 71104

SOUTHERN HILLS PARK
1002 Bert Kouns Ind. Loop
Shreveport, LA 71108

Ragle says the Airport Park pool has the highest attendance of any pool in the city and they will be keeping that pool open on the weekends through Labor Day. In fact, the city is working on a plan to keep the pool open on Fridays through Labor Day, but that will depend on staffing. Ragle says they will also have have an event at that pool through the weekend before children go back to school. It will also remain open for water aerobics through Labor Day weekend.

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Councilmembers asked Ragle why the other pools don't stay open through Labor Day and she said the problem is staffing. Once the teens go back to school, they don't have enough lifeguards to staff the pools.

Ragle says the pools will be managed differently going forward. She says since the pools are a much shallower depth, they will no longer drain them and turn them off. They will stay chlorinated all year long and they will be much easier to get opened for the next season.

She says "if there is an opportunity for us to swim, we're going to."