Coast Guard issues warning on ice conditions

1/22/2018

DETROIT — The Coast Guard renewed its warning about hazardous ice conditions Monday on Lake Erie, reporting it had made two rescues Sunday off Catawba Island and that ice decay was continuing during unseasonably warm weather.

“We want people to stay off the ice until conditions improve and share the information with their friends,” said Cmdr. Kevin Floyd, the search and rescue coordinator at Coast Guard Sector Detroit.

The Coast Guard had issued an initial warning Friday based on several ice-safety incidents, including a fatality, during a warmup earlier this month. On Sunday morning, its Marblehead station rescued members of two groups — one of three people, the other of two — whose all-terrain vehicles broke through the ice off East Harbor State Park.

The three-person group fell into the water, while the vehicle operated by the other group was amphibious but became trapped in the area where it broke through, said Lt. Jodie Knox, a Coast Guard spokesman in Detroit. All were rescued without injury.

Two snowmobiles and an ATV also went through the ice during the weekend in shallow water near Indian Island in Maumee Bay off Morin Point, Mich., Lieutenant Knox said, but those vehicles’ occupants had abandoned them beforehand.

In a separate incident, two people riding a snowmobile on the Ottawa River’s ice were killed Friday night when they crashed into a Point Place dock, but Lieutenant Knox said the river ice’s condition ice was not a factor in that crash.

Dr. James Patrick, the Lucas County coroner, said Monday that both Jessie Smith, 33, and Jakob Smith, 20, died of head and chest injuries they suffered in the 11 p.m. collision with the dock at Riverview Yacht Club, 5981 Edgewater Dr.