(CNN) – One person died Saturday after he fell in the water when an ice floe broke away from land in western Lake Erie, a Coast Guard spokesman told CNN.
Are all those quads and snowmobiles going to the bottom of the lake?
I would imagine if the temps allow for a re-freeze, the owners will simply go out and get the gear if thieves don’t get there first. The gear, as there’s a lot of it, will likely be tracked by officials in the area.
However, if the ice breaks up in the waves, or it continues to melt, the gear will be lost into the lake at which point the owners could face fines for various pollution regulations.
Quite likely, yes.
That Sheriff who was interviewed in the video sounded pissed. He said that those people never should have been out on that part of the ice, as it should have been clear that the ice was thin. He said that if he had his way “we would have had 150 arrests out there today.”
I believe it was the winter of 1976-77 that the Chesapeake Bay froze solid and Sharps Island Light was pushed over and tilted by the floes of ice. It remains like that to this day.
The lady who lives nearby, on the South River, told me “the kids were driving their VW bugs on the frozen river and the police did not dare go out to get them”. Sounds like a good way to drop through thin ice and never be seen again.
Photos and locations:
Sharps Island Light
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/185077
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/4777966
Bloody Point Bar Light, MD
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/4926775
That sheriff was absolutely right. There is a subculture of macho stupidity in that area, and this is not an isolated incident by any means. The ice was already separated from the land, and these idiots put planks across the gap, to drive onto the ice. They knew it was going to be a warm day with a southerly wind, and they were well aware of the dangers. They put themselves and the rescuers at risk, and ran up a huge bill for the taxpayers. The authorities should confiscate the vehicles (if it’s safe to do so) and sell them to pay for the rescue.
Actually, instead of being rescued, they should have been allowed to remove themselves from the gene pool.
If stupidity made anyone ineligible for rescue, there would be a lot less work for the Coast Guard and most rescue squads.
All it would take is a hovercraft and a couple of canoes to pull a 4-wheeler off the ice.
… and even automobiles, pickup trucks and SUVs some years. I used to live up there, and this happened fairly regularly. The rescue teams will not help the stranded folks rescue their equipment, but there is often a salvage company or two that will do it once it has been declared abandoned.
I don’t know if they “ransom” the stuff back to the owners, or just auction it off.
Easier said than done, when you’ve got to clear out eels just to get the canoes in, much less the 4-wheeler.
Seriously, how fscking bad is this going to be for the environment? That’s going to be tons of motor oil and gasoline…
Could you explain that please? I can’t make head nor tail of it 
It’s a Monty Python reference - “My hovercraft is full of eels.”
The ice was reported to be more than a foot thick, so it should take a while to melt. Not sure if it will happen, but that would give industrious folks time to find boats including a small barge and organize the retrieval of most or all the stranded vehicles.
Out of curiosity, is this a serious suggestion? It seems within the realm of possibility that a canoe could support the weight of half a 4-wheeler if the weight was properly distributed, but I can’t tell if you’re joking. If you’re serious, have you ever seen this done? Got pictures?
For reference:
http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/hungry.htm
It takes very little to float an ATV. I would think the owners will go back out and get them.
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened and won’t be the last.
As for petroleum spills, it would be nice to not have it happen, but it’s not even close to being an environmental catastrophe if the vehicles do go in the lake. There is no way the owners of trucks will let the vehicles just go down. It will cost them a lot more to have them removed from the lake bottom, and pay the fines than to have somebody fetch them now and get back a running vehicle.
Let’s say all150 resuced folk have F150s with full 30 gallon fuel tanks. Clearly that’s the worst case. We’re looking at 4500 gallons of gasoline and ~300 gallons of motor oil.
I’d wager more than that washes off the streets of Detroit & Cleveland into the lake every day it rains.
That’s ~650 cubic *feet * of petroleum, and Lake Erie is about 115 cubic miles of water. In other words, it’ll raise the petroleum content of the lake by 650/(52805280115) = 0.2 parts per million = 200 parts per billion.
Not even a visible mess, much less a crisis.
Rereading, it occurs to me that you’re probably referring to a four-wheeled ATV, and not something like a Jeep. So yeah, obviously a couple of canoes would do the job. Forget I asked. 
I understand that cars that sink in salt water are worthless-the salt will eventually eat them up, and also short out all of the electrical system. However, fresh water must be more benign-can vehicles be revover from a lake bottom and restored to use?
Here’s today’s update on the story.