Time to Stay Off the Ice/Another Rescue

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BAY CITY NEWS

Fisherman airlifted to hospital after falling through Saginaw Bay 
Crews responded to Nueman Road near the Saginaw Bay for a rescue operation after a fisherman fell through the ice.(Andrew Dodson | MLive.com)


By Andrew Dodson [e-mail]

PINCONNING TOWNSHIP, MI -- A man who fell through the ice on the Saginaw Bay was airlifted to a hospital after being rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.



Emergency crews responded to the end of Nueman Road in Pinconning Township at about 7:15 a.m. Monday, Feb. 19, according to WNEM TV-5.



Two men were out ice fishing when one man fell through, about 2.5 miles off shore, the station reports. The second man didn't sustain any injuries.



Temperatures are expected to rise this week and there are flood watches across the state with as much as 3 inches of rain expected to fall in the Great Lakes Bay Region over the next three days.

[ridge]

One of the comments stated that one of the men drove a snowmobile through the ice.  The other man came to help him and had to be rescued.

[hartman756]

Was out up here yesterday and the ice is still around two ft thick on the lake I was on . This morning I woke up to an ice storm with temps at 30 ( still drizzling and making more on everything as I type ) . So even though it is supposed to warm up some today I think our ice is safe for a while . The crappie and gills are schooled up and hungry  . I ended up with 22 crappie yesterday and also did real well Thurs and Fri with a mix of crappie and gills .

[Dale Malusi]

Two more Darwin award nominees last night. Should be the last ones from the bay, alive that is.
www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2018/02/coast_guard_rescues_marooned_i.html

[ridge]

If any more geniuses go out on the ice, it will be body recovery so states the Coast Guard.


The rivers are well over the bank.  Ice flows on the Rifle have destroyed at least 3 campgrounds with outhouses, picnic tables, and even a canoe was found floating down the river.  Folks that have homes along the river are finding that they are half under water.  They said that it came so fast that they had to be rescued.  From what my wife and granddaughter could see and from the news pictures some of the homes just west of our cabin are no longer usable.  The road below the cabin had ice floes right up to the top of the road but fortunately they stopped there and the road did not have to be closed.  Rescues were made from homes up by Omer yesterday.  Supposedly this was the second largest flood of the Rifle River in recorded history.

My granddaughter took some pictures.  If I can get them into this PC, I will share them on here.  Next posts are articles and posts concerning the flooding and there is another about what has happened on Saginaw Bay.

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By Cole Waterman [e-mail]

DEEP RIVER TWP, MI -- Authorities in Arenac County spent the morning knocking on doors, alerting residents that the Rifle River had flooded and was flowing at a brisk pace.



"The river had flooded overnight and was receding in the early morning hours," said Arenac County Undersheriff Don McIntyre the afternoon of Wednesday, Feb. 21. "The river had large ice floes that accumulated near our bridges, causing it to back up in a rapid pace."



Some residents on Pinnacle Drive, Franklin Trail, and Miller Road in Deep River Township were trapped in their homes, McIntyre said.



The flooded Rifle River in Arenac County

"We performed quite a few door-to-door checks," he said. "We had some individuals who were unwilling to leave and were going to ride out the high water."



Joining deputies were personnel from the Standish Area Fire Authority and Sterling Area Fire Department.



The Rifle River reached depths of more than 12 feet, McIntyre said.



All told, four residences were evacuated. As of 3 p.m., operations have ceased and the rifle appears to be maintaining its depth, McIntyre said.



"We believe we have everyone who wants to leave out of the area, and those who want to stay are tucked into their homes," the undersheriff said. "We wish them the best of luck."









  Pinnacle Road behind the cabin flooded.

  Scene from the bridge on the road below the cabin.

Pictures by The Arenac County Independent and The Bay City News

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The 4000 block of Pinnacle Drive is completely underwater


Posted Wednesday, February 21, 2018 2:41 pm

By Tim Barnum | [e-mail]

989-387-9140

DEEP RIVER TWP. — Five people, including one young child, and multiple pets were assisted in evacuating their homes by firefighters and the sheriff’s department Feb. 21 when the Rifle River reached its second-highest level on record.



The Sterling Area Fire Authority and Standish Area Fire Authority were dispatched to multiple residences on the 4000 block of Pinnacle Drive in Deep River Township. Firefighters were joined by the Arenac County Sheriff’s Department’s dive team and deputies, and Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Police in rescuing trapped residents and evacuating homes that could be in the line of danger.



Sterling’s Second Assistant Fire Chief Nick Arquette said aid is being sought for the people and animals rescued from the homes on Pinnacle Drive.



“The Red Cross has been contacted to assist with the displaced families and pets,” he said. “Firefighters rescued multiple people, including a baby, from the flooded houses.”



Emergency Management Coordinator Ed Rohn issued a press release at 4 p.m. Wednesday stating an American Red Cross shelter had been established at the Deep River Township Hall. People needing information regarding the shelter and services can call 810-397-3736.



Arenac County Undersheriff Don McIntyre said although the Rifle River reaches flood stages several times a year, this was the worst he’s ever seen it flood. Had it not been for firefighters pulling a boat close to one of the flooded homes, the situation could have been very dire, he said.



“The Standish firefighters went into the house to rescue the elderly lady and that water was rising fast,” he said. “Unlike some flooding situations this was truly a life-or-death situation.”



McIntyre said he and other police officers made contact with several residents living on Miller and Franklin roads near the river, recommending they evacuate as soon as possible due to how fast the water was rising. He said when the firefighters made entrance into the first home to help an elderly lady safely exit, Pinnacle Drive was visible, but in a matter of a few minutes — by the time she was taken to safety — water was knee-high on the roadway.



Like McIntyre, Laurie Richardson, a co-owner of Rifle River Campground in Sterling, said this is the worst flooding she has ever seen.



“This has surpassed everything we’ve ever seen,” she told the Independent Wednesday morning. “It’s crazy.”



“We never had it close to our cabins and we have three cabins sitting in water right now, and we can’t get to them because the water’s too deep,” Richardson said.



The campground was covered with ice chunks Wednesday morning, one measuring 21 inches thick, Richardson said. She estimated that 90 percent of the campground was covered with ice chunks.



“There are big, probably 2-foot chunks of ice from the ice floe everywhere,” she said. “We’ve got cabins underwater. It’s a mess. We’ve had it 50 years here and it’s never, ever been like this.”



Along with the damaged cabins, the campground lost picnic tables and canoes, Richardson said.



“We pick them up every winter and we bring them up far enough to dry ground, but we’ve never had the water come up this high,” she said. “We’ve seen several of them float down the river. We’ve lost several canoes from our canoe rack. It’s almost up to our store.”



According to National Weather Service data, the flood reached 12.96 feet at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday morning. The all-time high water mark for the river was 13.7 feet on March 28, 1950, per the NWS. This year’s flood was the second-highest of all time. The previous second-highest flood was March 21, 1948, when the river’s height was 12.62 feet.



Ladd White, the owner of White’s Canoe Livery and Campground in Sterling, said the ice buildup is the reason for much of the flooding issues.



“When it starts building and lifting and busting that ice, especially this time of year when there’s a lot of thickness to the ice, the water gets behind it and backs up,” he said. “It’s like a bulldozer pushing through everything. It can be very destructive and if it does it at the right places, you can see some major damage. Hopefully that’s not going to be the case.”



White said flooding in February, especially as severe as Wednesday’s was, is not common. Per the NWS, all of the previous top-five flooding events in the Rifle River’s observation history occurred in March.



“This isn’t the time of the year when this normally happens, but when it does, that’s what makes it so bad is the thickness of the ice,” White said. “What’s unusual about it is we didn’t have much snow and didn’t have a ton of rain, but for whatever reason this year the groundwater is very high.”



One major difference between then and now, White said, is the number of developments along the river’s banks.



“You go back into the 1950s when you had that high water and you had no places on the water,” he said.



“I was born in 1960, so I’ve watched the river for 55 years that I can remember,” White said. “We used to have a house on the banks. We had a house right on the river banks where the canoe fence was, and we never had water that came up into that. Now it’s 2.5 feet up into the paddle shed where that house was.”



As a precaution, late Wednesday night, homes in Arenac Township and the Omer area were evacuated, Rohn said. He said people in homes on the east and west ends of Conrad Road were advised to evacuate.



“Big Bend Campground called in and said it was coming over the banks there, so they were leaving,” he said. “Then the sheriff’s department came out and went door to door advising people to leave.”



Rohn said the river was already flooded, but around 11:30 p.m. he was contacted by Arenac County Central Dispatch because the water seemed to be rushing and rising.



“The side of the river coming in off Arenac State Road, that flooded earlier in the day, and people were accessing property at the end of the road by a boat,” he said. “I think then what happened was the ice jam at Grove Road broke through and that water there that was backed up came through in a surge.”



Firefighters from the Sterling Area Fire Department were dispatched back to the Pinnacle Park area Thursday due to the smell of propane. Multiple propane tanks were discovered to be overturned and leaking. Forward Corporation was dispatched to assist in turning off the tanks

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U.S. Coast Guard warns: Stay off deteriorating Saginaw Bay ice

Updated Feb 22, 9:13 AM; Posted Feb 22, 9:13 AM

An airboat owned by the Huron and Tuscola County Sheriff's Offices returns to shore with the bodies of two men who fell through the Saginaw Bay [see below article]


By Michael Kransz [e-mail]

After a thaw, heavy rains and several fishermen falling through the ice, the U.S. Coast Guard is warning people: Stay off the Saginaw Bay.



"In the past 48 hours alone, four people have either broken through ice or had to abandon their ATVs and snowmobiles," a Coast Guard statement released Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 21, read.





"We highly recommend staying off the remaining ice in Saginaw Bay, as the increase in distress cases demonstrate it has become significantly weaker and prone to breaking apart."



Since the start of 2018, U.S. Coast Guard personnel have responded to 11 distress situations on the Saginaw Bay, according to the statement. These are incidents of people disoriented, stranded on or fallen through the ice.



Although Coast Guard rescuers have saved six lives, two people died this year after they were unable to get out of the water or signal for help, the statement read.




 Picture by Huron County Sheriff's Department

[hartman756]

Nothing like that around here Ridge !  It made it to just below 40 the one day and is back to below freezing now . The ice around here is still thick unless you try going around a river mouth where there have been some problems this winter with people going through with a ATVs .