Officials warn visitors at popular Georgia beach after 300 jellyfish stings in single day

Watch where you step or swim if you’re visiting Tybee Island this summer.

A high number of jellyfish stung more than 300 people at the popular Georgia beach on Saturday alone, according to officials.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Capt. David Bowen with the Tybee Island Fire Department says he would not categorize it as an “extraordinary” high number, it is more than the average his department usually sees.

“We treat anywhere from 150-250 stings a day on average. Weekends tend to see the most stings but increased number of beach goers on weekends also plays a factor into that,” Bowen told Channel 2 Action News.

So far this year, Bowen said 434 is the highest number of stings his department has seen in a single day.

TRENDING STORIES:

• Robber forces his way into elderly woman’s home, steals bank cards and ties her up, police say
• Atlanta-based Equifax says coding error caused it to submit wrong credit scores to lenders
• Elderly couple found dead in East Georgia home likely died from heat stroke, coroner says

WTOC in Savannah spoke with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources about why beachgoers may be seeing more of the sea creatures pop up.

“There was a strong easterly wind, that’s wind blowing east to the west towards Tybee Island offshore, so it’s likely there were schools of jellyfish out there offshore, and they blew in there with the wind and the weather over the past couple of weeks,” Tyler Jones told the news station.

Jones added that the high tide will eventually carry the jellyfish back out where they can be food for other animals.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

Mass of jellyfish wash up on Georgia shoreline (NCD)

©2022 Cox Media Group