Rehoboth Beach Cancels Special Olympics Polar Bear Plunge Due to Storm Cleanup

City officials have called off this weekend's Special Olympics Delaware Polar Bear Plunge in Rehoboth Beach due to ongoing storm recovery efforts. Snow-covered sidewalks, blocked beach access, and stretched emergency resources prompted the difficult safety decision.

Rehoboth Beach officials have canceled this weekend’s Special Olympics Delaware Polar Bear Plunge, citing safety concerns as the city continues recovering from a major snowstorm.

City leaders made the difficult decision after determining that ongoing cleanup operations and hazardous conditions would prevent them from safely hosting the popular annual event.

Several factors influenced the cancellation decision, according to city officials. Many sidewalks throughout the community remain uncleared, forcing large crowds to walk in roadways. Snow continues to blanket the boardwalk and beach access points through the dunes remain blocked.

Emergency services would face significant challenges with limited parking and staging areas unavailable, while the event requires public safety teams to be fully prepared. City work crews remain focused on helping residents who lost electricity, have restricted street access, and are dealing with fallen trees and branches on their properties.

Municipal teams are also prioritizing the clearing of Rehoboth Avenue and nearby streets to restore parking availability and business access. The large-scale nature of the Polar Bear Plunge typically requires additional emergency personnel from across the state, but those crews are currently engaged in storm recovery and rescue operations throughout the region.

“Unfortunately, we cannot justify putting people’s safety at risk, nor can we shift our resources to focus on the event,” says Rehoboth Beach Police Chief Keith Banks. “Public works and public safety crews in the city and the surrounding areas have been working around the clock this week, so preparing and staffing the event isn’t feasible this weekend. This timing is unfortunate for all of us, as the Polar Bear Plunge is a wonderful event that we enjoy participating in every year, but we need to put safety first and utilize our resources properly.”

Although weekend weather forecasts show improvement, officials needed to make an immediate decision, and current conditions prevented them from confidently ensuring participant safety and event quality.

“The Polar Bear Plunge is an event we all look forward to in the City of Rehoboth Beach, so this decision did not come lightly,” says City Manager Taylour Tedder. “It needs to be rather extreme circumstances for us to make a recommendation like this, and this storm presented those extreme circumstances. We are proud of the hard work our city employees have done during this storm recovery, including trying their best to make way for the event to happen, but we have simply run out time, as a decision had to be made. We encourage people to continue to support the amazing efforts of Special Olympics Delaware, we appreciate our partnership with them and look forward to welcoming all plungers back here when it’s safer to do so.”