State News
Eight rescued from Missouri River sandbar
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FarkWAGNER — Just because the water level in the drought-stricken Missouri River is low downstream from the Fort Randall Dam doesn’t mean it stays that way. Just ask eight people who were rescued from a sandbar over the Memorial Day weekend.
State Game, Fish and Parks Department Conservation Officer Nick Fleury of Wagner and Charles Mix County Deputy Ryan Rucktaeschel helped rescue the people, who were stranded on Saturday of the holiday weekend.
The water below the dam was uncharacteristically low that day, causing many campers at the Randall Creek State Recreation Area to explore in the low water, Fleury said. “It’s not very often that the water’s as low as it was,” Fleury said.
An adult and five children ranging in age from 3 to 11 had waded out to the sandbar, which was about half mile from the shore.
Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers had released water from the reservoir, and when it does so, a horn is sounded as a warning.
“They (campers) heard the first horn and didn’t know what it meant,” Fleury said. But when the horn sounded a second time, they figured it out and got halfway to shore before the current got too strong, he said.
The six gathered on the sandbar’s highest point.
Two adults on shore saw what was happening, grabbed a batch of lifejackets and walked to the sandbar.
When Fleury and Rucktaeschel arrived, the water had risen past the waists of the adults who were trying to keep the children out of the flowing water. “The adults were having a hard time standing up against the current,” Fleury said.
All were taken to safety by boat. No one was injured, “just a little shaken up,” he said.
“This story had a happy ending, but it could very well have resulted in tragedy,” Curt Robertson, GF&P boating safety coordinator, said in a release. “The moral is that even low water can be dangerous and that anyone out on the water — boaters and swimmers — should always be aware of their surroundings.”
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