Here's a sad story from South Dakota, in my old stomping grounds about getting caught in a bad situation but some making it out. There are several lessons here I think - about being prepared with the right equipment and not exceeding what you can deal with.

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_528f5fa4-8261-11df-bab3-001cc4c002e0.html

Paul -

Some of these terms are new to me - were they on some sort of relativly fast moving body of water or more like a man made lake?

Sad no matter what!

Thanks,

R

That's terrible! I also grew up not far from there, didn't see the news report til just now. What a brave little girl to hike out. And I wonder what happened since some of the ones who perished had PFDs still on them.

Diversion dams are also called low-head dams. They are a HUGE risk in river kayaking. They are hard to see coming, and are frequently lethal. The water flows over the top of the dam, then forms a recirculating hydraulic or hole at the bottom. The drop may be relatively small, but in fast current, the hydraulic is very strong.

In most naturally-occurring hydraulics you can work your way to one side or the other, or find a weak spot in the flow, and flush out. With manmade low-head dams, the hydraulic doesn't have any weak spots and extends all the way across the river - usually with steep concrete banks on each side. There's no way to get out the sides, and no weak spots.

This is also one situation where PFDs can make things worse. The water in a hydraulic is usually flowing out at the bottom of the river. If you are in a lifejacket, it can keep you too high in the water to get caught in the outflow. You get carried to the front of the hydraulic, forced underwater, carried a little bit downstream, then float to the top where the water carries you back to the front of the hydraulic.

Condolences to their friends and family.

Maybe some kind of reasonable retrofit could be done to make them less hazardous, especially on popular rivers. Nothing elaborate or horribly expensive, just something to help people free themselves, like handholds or something on the sidewalls.

Would dumping rubble at the bottom of the face of these dams on popular rivers break up the hydraulic? Or would it just create a worse hazard of hitting the rubble when you went over the dam?

I remember a dam like this back when I was in high school. On the Guadalupe River in central Texas. I forgot the name of the dam, I think it was "Guadalupe Falls", and it was quite dangerous. Our schools canoeing club used to run that river all the time back in the early 70's. There was a large sign strung overhead across the river as you approached the dam warning you of the dangers. The drop was only 3 feet or so but the hydrolics were dangerous. The experienced canoers would shoot the dam with spotters on each shore below the dam. Only if the water was flowing high so you wouldn't snag on the damn and get sideways - you had to shoot it straight or you were toast. One person fell out of the canoe once and got caught in the hydrolics. The spotters canoed in from the sides, jumped in (I was one of them) and got his life vest off. We all dove towards the bottom, and popped up downstream OK.

Looking back, we were pretty dumb to do this in the first place. Teenagers in high school ... what can I say?!

A few years ago I took a 2-day swiftwater rescue class. They said that the manmade low-head dams were extremely dangerous and have claimed many lives. Once caught in the hydraulic it is damn hard to escape without knowledgable help from shore.

They are reworking the one on our city's main river, but it isn't a simple or cheap solution; its a 6.4 million dollar project. If you're interested, you can check out the project here: harviepassage.ca

I don't know if there are cheaper or simpler solutions, but knowing our city council I'd guess there are .