GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – Before hitting the waters, people are urged to prepare for potentially dangerous conditions.
Despite air temperatures that have recently neared 80 degrees in some parts of the Midwest, Coast Guard Petty Officer Second Class Christopher Yaw says water conditions are nowhere near as nice.
Yaw notes there is typically a discrepancy of 25-40 degrees between the air and water temperatures.
“The lakes take a long time to warm up, and they cool down very quickly.”
He says hypothermia can happen at any temperature, with varying onsets.
According to Yaw, there is no set time for when the local waters will be safe for people to enter.
“It will really just depend on how many warm days we have. It could be mid-June. It could be late July.”
Before getting out on the water, Yaw encourages people to dress according to the water conditions, not the air temperatures.
The Coast Guard encourages multiple procautions to guard against hypothermia, including: wearing a life jacket, notfiying family and friends of where you are going and when you plan to return, and sporting reflective clothing that makes you easy to spot.
Yaw also urges folks to carry and register a personal locator beacon that “when activated will bounce a signal to a satellite, and it will bascially tell us that someone is in distress. We can then hone into that beacon within a couple of feet and be able to come right to where you’re at.”
Last weekend, the Coast Guard says it rescued a total of 12 people from Lake Michigan in five separate incidents.
Two of the incidents occurred in Wisconsin.
A man whose kayak overturned was rescued Saturday, roughly two miles south of the Kenosha Harbor. He was wearing a life jacket but suffered mild hypothermia and muscle fatigue.
Three people were assisted by a Milwaukee Coast Guard crew and a good Samartian after their 17-foot boat started taking on water Saturday. They were taken to a nearby marina.
In the Chicago area, three adults and three children were brought to a nearby marina after their 25-foot pontoon boat became disabled on Lake Calumet.
A man was rescued after he was spotted yelling for hlep in the water near Burnham Harbor in downtown Chicago.
The operator of a 76-foot pleasure craft was saved after his vehicle started taking on water off of Ludington, Michigan.
While these were not the first incidents in Lake Michigan this year, Yaw says it is the largest number of problems reported in a two-day span.
