Wave here is generated by powerful fans housed in a concrete wall that runs along one side of the surf pool. Mike Schwab is the resorts general manager. He says those fans compressed air inside a series of chambers in the wall. There's a proprietary way that that air gets released displaces water and that specific displacement paired with the Way that the concrete bottom is designed is what creates a breaking wave. The system was designed by American Wave machines in Solana Beach, California It's one of several companies that uses air pressure to generate surfing waves. Other companies use paddles, plungers pistons or a hydrofoil dragged through the water. Schwab says in Waco, a computer algorithm controls the size, shape and direction of each wave. You can have a beginner wave. That's fun on a long boarder, a phone board. You can have an expert wave. You can have a wave specifically to get barreled. You can have a wave to try and work on your heirs and things like that. Artificial waves have been around for decades. For example, Disney World opened its Typhoon Lagoon in 1989. But the waves in these pools tended to be slow and mushy. They were designed for tourists, not surfers. Then in 2015 11 time, World Surf League champion Kelly Slater unveiled a different kind of wave. It breaks in an abandoned water ski park in central California. A massive hydrofoil is propelled through the water to generate the sort of fast barreling waves that surfers dreams are made of. Later had spent 10 years on the project and a promotional video captured his reaction to the finished wave. Oh, God! Away. But Slater's wave was never meant for the surfing masses. The machine produces about 15 waves an hour and writing just one costs hundreds of dollars. Waco machine can make 120 waves an hour and cost surfers about $10 arrived. That makes the wave pool commercially viable. Sessions in Waco are generally sold out weeks ahead of time, and the success is encouraging other resorts in water parks to add their own state of the art surf pools. Schwab says the Waco surf pool itself was added to a park built for another water sport. The dude that put it all together was a barefoot water skier in this whole place started based on barefoot water skiing. Over time, the facility added. A wakeboarding pond, a lazy river and an extreme water slide. The BS are surf pool opened in 2018. Within weeks of pro named Seth Money's landed a backflip on the air section, and the video went viral. But beginners come here to Brian Film or the manager is a Texas native who pretty much learn to surf on the Waco wave. When I started, I was a beginner, and now I'm Able to get barreled Do errors working on perfecting my turns just like every other surfer surfers often talk about finding the perfect wave. But Dave likens, the chief operating officer here, says they don't want to ride the same perfect wave over and over. If it's not Changeable. If it's not something that's going to be a little different each time where you can try something different each time you're eventually gonna get bored of that So like in says, the way of here can be customized. We had an event recently out here that rip curl did called the Gram Search and American weight machines put a new wave in Way that nobody had seen. They debuted it right there. The most radical wave in Waco is the freak peak produced when two swells collide, but even the standard waves can challenge surfers used to catching ocean swells. Rebecca Carr came here from California with her husband and their three kids. You can only drop in in one spot. So you have to actually like you have to be good to get in these waves car figured it out, though. So did I. After watching a few waves. And car says she's definitely coming back. Well, I grew up two hours from here in Granbury, Texas. So this is our family vacation every year, and it just turns out now we can surf when we're in mid Texas and lots of other places with artificial surfing waves, including one that breaks in a mall in New Jersey. Jon Hamilton. NPR NEWS Waco, Texas Going to take my surfboard to Waco gonna ride till I can't No. To take my servant. This is NPR news. This is W N. Y. C today on all of it. Alison Stewart talks with artists and 9 11 1st responder Brenda Berkman about hard depictions of ground zero and her efforts to spotlight the women of the F D N Y. Plus a deep dive into a 10 Year study on abortion and the impact of denying abortions to those who want them tune in today at noon. 72 clear this morning.