SCOTT, Wis.— An acre of ice broke away from the shoreline with 27 anglers stranded on the flow as it drifted out into the 1,600-square mile Green Bay arm of Lake Michigan. All were rescued. It took a small armada of rescue vessels, including flat-bottom airboats propelled by giant aircraft-style propellers. The emergency was at Point Comfort about eight miles up the bay from the city of Green Bay. It was thought that a passing barge destabilized the ice. The emergency call, on a cell phone from a stranded angler, reached the sheriff’s dispatcher in Green Bay at 10:17 a.m. The floe was three-quarters of mile out when rescuers arrived. By that time the floe was cracking and breaking down and moving farther out. The bay is five miles across at that point. In places Green Bay is 580 feet deep.
27 saved from break-away ice pack. Rescuers pull imperiled fishers into boats.
Rescue armada. Coast Guard and sheriff’s airboats were among rescue vehicles. Maxed out with eight passengers, they made repeated trips to shore.
Verbatim
Robert Verhagen, angler to WBAY interviewer: “There are people on the other side yelling, ‘You’ve got to get over quick, You’re breaking off.’ There was already a 10-foot gap there so it’s just like, well, we thought about just staying out there and fishing. But then you’re like we have to pack up, get ready, and be prepared to get rescued from service personnel.”
Verbatim
Shane Nelson, angler to WLUK interviewer: “It sounded like somebody had fired a gun when the ice broke. We thought it was interesting, got out of our shanty, took a look and people were yelling on the ice, ‘We’re separating’,”