I was having a beer with my brother and his wife when their daughter - who works as a life guard - called and said 5 people drowned. As it turned out, it was only 2, bringing the toll in the past month to 3 people drowned in my one little town on the lake.
Drownings around here are almost always tourists. The locals know to stay away from that one beach, and we know to not get into the water at that other beach when there are huge waves. Despite large signs telling people about the hazards of swimming in these areas, people still get in the water. Add in that the Lake temperature is crazy warm this year - pushing 70 degrees which is unheard of - and there are lots of people in the water who normally wouldn’t get near it.
Sooo… if you’re planning a vacation near water… please be careful. Don’t just walk past the signs warning you not to swim at that beach. Look at that memorial - it’s there because almost every year, someone drowns here. Even if there’s not a sign, don’t get into the water if it’s rough or you’re not a good swimmer. There are plenty of safe beaches, protected harbors, places with lifeguards. Ask around, find of of them.
Man. Our Great Lakes can turn nasty in a heartbeat, can’t they?
Now I’m wondering if Lake Michigan ever gave up the body of that little girl that Qadgop tried to save, and nearly found himself in the same situation.
Not as much as the ocean, but plenty enough to cause problems. One of the beaches where people drown every year has a significant undertow. We can also get large waves on windy days just about everywhere.
Are many of these unsafe beaches natural or man-made? I live very near a sizable lake which has a man-made beach replete with the requisite sand, lifeguard chairs, picnic area, etc. If the beaches are man-made, why on Earth have them in parts of the Great Lakes where its so unsafe to swim?
In The Perfect Storm, author Sebastian Junger spends several pages talking about how large waves are generated at sea. Wikipedia says five factors influence the formation of ocean waves, but Junger focuses on three: [wind] speed, duration (of wind blow), and “fetch.” Fetch is the distance of open water the wind has blown across. (The other two factors Wikipedia mentions are width of the area fetch blows across, which Junger probably considered part of fetch, and water depth.)
Fetch is the relevant factor, since wind speed and duration over the Great Lakes could be theoretically equal to the ocean, and certainly strong enough to overcome any swimmer. Are the Great Lakes long enough for the wind speed and duration to push enough water up to form really big waves? The answer is yes. The lakes are pretty huge and the waves get to be pretty spectacular – just ask the Edmund Fitzgerald. The loss of the Fitz – possibly due to a rogue wave – points out another danger. Waves can get into synchronicity and several peaks can pile up, forming an unexpectedly huge wave , much larger than the rest of waves in a particular sea state. Although they were long assumed to be figments of sailors’ imagination, recent research has confirmed that not only do rogue waves exist, they are much more common than mathematical probability theory would predict, and occur all around the world many times a year. The significance for the Great Lakes is that the conditions (speed, duration, fetch) can already produce fatal waves, but an occasional freak wave twice the size (or more) of those already-fatal waves might occur.
And rogues can “appear without warning in mid-ocean, against the prevailing current and wave direction, and often in perfectly clear weather.”
A guy I used to climb with is a surfer. He has surfed on Lake Huron (that’s not him, but you can see what the surfing can be like). The waves can be similar on Lake Michigan in the right weather.
It’s a weird area, on one side of the main city beach. The rest of the beach is fine to swim in, no problems at all. But this one area has a few tempting-looking rocks that look like they’re in swimmable distance, and indeed they are, most days. But every year or two, a few people die there, because in the right conditions there’s a bad undertow.
There are HUGE signs warning people of this, but still, people get in the water. The city just in the past week or so has finally decided to patrol the area and will have lifeguards warning people not to get in the water. There is no lifeguard at the beach because in reality, there really should be no swimming there. Just walk 5 minutes down the beach and swim THERE, it’s much safer.
Those photos do look like ocean waves on a rough day at the beach, but I’ve swum in that sort of surf. Is it the waves, or the lack of experience on the part of the swimmers?
Some guy died in The Wisconsin near us a week ago. It’s at high levels and one person in a group of canoers decided to swim. The river gets people traveling through hear every year.
Are these lakes fresh water or a bit salty? Because floating and treading water is a lot easier in salt water which may lead people to overestimate their swimming abilities when swimming in a fresh water lake.
