Story at a glance
- A large chunk of ice broke off from the shoreline in Green Bay, leaving dozens of fishermen stranded.
- Crews used airboats to rescue eight of the stranded fishermen at a time.
- No injuries were reported during the incident, and authorities said a barge traveling through the area may have caused the chunk to dislodge.
Dozens of fishermen were rescued Saturday after they were stranded on a large chunk of floating ice that broke away from the shoreline in the bay of Green Bay in eastern Wisconsin, according to local authorities.
The Brown County Sheriff’s Office said it first received reports of the piece of ice near Point Comfort — along the east shore of Green Bay — that had started to split from the main shoreline late Saturday morning.
The sheriff’s office and the U.S. Coast Guard then used airboats to rescue eight of the stranded fishermen at a time as the floating ice chunk moved away from shore. Authorities said the block of ice was about a mile from shore by the time the rescue was finished, and the stranded people were on the separated ice for about 90 minutes.
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Pics of today’s ice rescue. Happy to report a good ending to this extremely dangerous situation. Please continue to avoid the ice along the east shore as it has been compromised by barge traffic. pic.twitter.com/NAGEcqppfF
— Brown County Sheriff (@sheriffbc) January 8, 2022
“It sounded like, almost, somebody fired a gun out there,” Shane Nelson, a first-time fisherman who was stranded on the ice, told local WLUK.
“We thought it was interesting, got out of our shanty, took a look and people were yelling on the ice, ‘We’re separating.’”
No injuries were reported during the incident, and authorities said a barge traveling through the area may have caused the chunk to dislodge, although officials are still investigating to determine the exact cause.
The Brown County’s Sheriff’s Office initially reported 27 people were stranded on the ice but later updated that number to 34, according to local WLUK.
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