Stranded on breaking ice floes

STURGEON BAY, Wis.  – The Coast Guard rescued 66 ice-fishers after winds broke off their ice and pushed the floe away from shore and out into Lake Michigan. Two Coast Guard helicopters lowered rescue swimmers to the ice to coordinate local first-responders and other Coast Guard personnel rushing in boats to the battered floe. Meanwhile, high winds kept buffeting the floe and thrusting the stranded fishers farther out into the lake. The ice was cracking into smaller and smaller chunks. The first panic call went out from the ice was 911 about 9 a.m. The Coast Guard dispatched the helicopters from Traverse City, Michigan, 60 miles across the lake. The operation took four hours. No one was injured.

Floe ahoy
The day began with fishers trudging out on the ice, most of them by foot, some on wheels. They cut their usual holes in the ice and dropped their hooks. Then came the winds cold and fierce. The ice cracked and broke – and the fishers found themselves stranded on crumbling islands of ice that the wind was pressing out from shore. Images: U.S. Coast Guard

Chopper drop. Coast Guard helicopters from the Michigan side of the lake  lowered rescuers in orange rescue gear onto the ice. Meanwhile the Coast Guard cutter Mobile Bay was launching from Sturgeon Bay, followed by a makeshift flotilla of first-responders in small watercraft.