HOLLYWOOD BEACH TODAY (8/19/26) . from Dania Beach…

I am a transplant here from NY. Been here for 6 months. Been to the beach a few times with all the sea weed. The cities don't clean this up?

Want to see Haulover!!

Just like how they have snow plowers to remove snow I’m sure they can have a machine that can pick up seaweed off the shore… Maybe it’s not as important to humanity to them🤷🏽

Here are the "red-flag" facts that keep showing up in the peer-reviewed and agency reports — the ones that turn sargassum from a nuisance into a public-health and ecological emergency: ### Scale — it's never been this big - **∼40 million metric tons** flowed through the tropical Atlantic in 2025, with severe accumulations on Puerto Rico's coast - **>24 million tonnes** were floating at the end of April 2025 — a record for that month - **Record-high levels for May**, with June 2026 expected to be higher, across the Caribbean, Gulf, and Atlantic - Mats can pile **5–6 feet deep** on beaches, described by researchers as "a catastrophic problem for tourism" ### Official emergency declarations - **Puerto Rico:** state of emergency signed **June 30, 2025** - **Playa del Carmen, Mexico:** "state of emergency due to a natural disaster has been declared" for critical sargassum conditions - Historical precedents: Tobago (2015), Barbados (2018), Mexico (2019) all used the same legal tool ### Human health risks - **Hydrogen sulfide:** as it rots, sargassum "darkens in color and releases hydrogen sulfide, affecting local air quality" - **Vibrio bacteria:** in floating mats, Vibrio made up to **26.8% of the bacterial community** in some samples, vs **0.5% in surrounding seawater**; Vibrio is favored by high sargassum growth and coastal nutrients - **Florida Vibrio vulnificus (flesh-eating):** - 2026: **6 cases by early June**, double the same time last year - 2025: **33 cases, 5 deaths**; 2024: **82 cases, 19 deaths** after Hurricane Helene flooding - Nationwide: ~**80,000 vibriosis illnesses and 100 deaths per year** - **Chemical load:** beached sargassum in South Florida averaged **64.3 mg/kg arsenic** (vs 2.18 mg/kg in seagrass); Mexican Caribbean samples showed **10 PFAS detected at 3.88 ng/g**, dominated by long-chain compounds ### Ecological kill mechanisms - **Blocks sunlight and reduces oxygen, affecting fish, corals, and sea turtles** - **Decomposition consumes oxygen and releases toxic compounds, generating hypoxic zones** "uninhabitable for many forms of marine life" - **Light cut by up to 73%, water up to 5°C warmer** under mats - **Turtles cannot reach the coast to nest; corals suffer pH changes; seagrass beds die from suffocation** ### Economic hit - Florida alone faces potential **billions in economic damage** in a record summer - Cancún hotels reported bookings at **55% of expected**, with some areas seeing **60% drops** in Cancún and 40% in Puerto Morelos These are the data points that trigger emergency orders — not the floating golden mats offshore (which are still fish nurseries), but the massive, rotting, bacteria-laden landings in hot, shallow water that we're in right now. This mess is all over the open waters of the gulf and caribbean it's comming and comming buckel up.

I was in the ocean this am North Beach and watched Dania groom their beach. It looked beautiful when they finished. No clean up done South of Dania Beach

OMG!

But the water is clean, clear and warm ♥️😍😍

That happens it’s normal

sea weed beach , its like steping in a carpet.

Went to Hollywood Beach 2 weeks ago. It was very hot and I had to use the showers to cool off. Can’t go in the ocean anymore! The city needs to do something about it. Tourism is our #1 industry!!

Wowza

The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt is an 8,000-kilometer (5,000-mile) floating mass of brown macroalgae stretching from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. First appearing at massive scale in 2011, this seasonal bloom brings heavy ecological and economic disruptions to Florida and the Caribbean as currents wash it ashore.

Does this have anything to do with them building Pickleball courts where we used to dump the seaweed?

I was in Puerto Rico and all the beaches are the same way

Buckle up folks this is the new normal 🥺

Ridiculous

Nobody clean this ???

FL West coast is the best coast currently.

Natural occurrence stop cwyin

Sunny Isles Beach the same all summer season. 😲

Go to mainland Mex, Punta Mita, Sayulita, Lo De Marcos,,, it’s beautiful, surf is great, no seaweed

Sunny Isles Beach is also the same way since March!!

As long as they keep messing around, dumping chemicals and altering nature, that—and many new things—will happen.

JC's Harkey · I’m going to continue to tell people in Florida if this is not going to go away it’s going to get worse. Please take a look at the maps of Playa Del Carmen Tulum on the Caribbean inside of Mexico. Look at all to the sargasso, started 10 or 12 years ago every year has gotten worse than the point that it’s almost ruined tourism. Literary down by over 50% and you can’t control this and you can’t stop it. Somebody better be jumping on it very fast for those people that have hotels bed-and-breakfast restaurants that are waterfront related, well some of those companies will end up bankrupt, I hope I’m not right, but I’ve been watching it for a decade. The Gulf Coast and Florida are both in line for this problem. How sad. But that’s mother nature throwed in with a little bit of global warming.

It’s not in the water so much, just on shore from accumulation. If the city got rid of it, our beaches would be clean and inhabited again, like some of the other beaches in SoFla It’s a shame. Broadwalk was desolate today