Column: State must pony up for ‘Deadly Coast' rescue gear

Chicago Tribune

3 days ago

Marketing folks have tried to slap an inviting name to describe this side of Lake Michigan. Over the years they've offered the Third Coast, Inland Coast and Fresh Coast.
It's worked for Florida, which has the snowbird-inviting Treasure Coast, Gold Coast and Emerald Coast, among other coasts. Tourism officials in the Sunshine State have ignored naming a portion of the Atlantic side, between Daytona Beach and Cape Canaveral, the Shark Coast for obvious reasons. This, despite the frequency of swimmers attacked by the predators in near-shore surf.
Likewise, nobody has proposed the Deadly Coast for Lake County's portion of the Big Lake. Although that moniker has some truth to it, according to Lake County fire-rescue officials, who say they need better equipment for rescue operations up and down the coastline where, at the northern end, much of it lacks lifeguards.
So far this season, emergency calls to water incidents have totaled six, including one death. That was a 20-year-old Waukegan resident who died last month after a rescue diver pulled him from the lake by Illinois Beach State Park.
The park, the state's second-most visited, has seen increased visitor numbers since the beach underwent shoreline restoration work. About a week after the drowning, a rescue operation saved a rider who was in distress after falling off his personal watercraft near the state's North Point Marina in Winthrop Harbor.
Last year, Beach Park Fire Department firemedics responded to two drownings, according to officials. From 2016 to 2022, shoreline fire departments have answered about 30 calls for water rescues.
Across the lakes' region, the nonprofit Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project, based in south suburban Homewood, has tallied 31 drownings to date this year, with 15 of those in Lake Michigan, far and away the most of any of the big lakes.
In 2024, Lake Michigan claimed more than 94 lives. The group has counted 1,362 drownings overall in the Great Lakes since 2010, including those of a father and son from Chicago's south suburbs who died in the lake near Indiana Dunes National Park on July 5.
The area was lucky over the Fourth of July weekend with the National Weather Service issuing a beach-hazard advisory for Lake County, which began July 5 and lasted until nightfall on July 7. Life-threatening and dangerously high waves, from three to six feet, battered the shoreline and swimming beaches, forecasters had predicted.
The danger of Lake Michigan is its propensity for rip currents, high waves and quick drop-offs. Adding to those hazards are beachgoers ignoring the peril of the Big Lake, although there is a 2023 state law that mandates water-safety training in schools for all kindergarteners through sixth graders.
Area rescuers say they are being hamstrung by the lack of equipment needed to handle quicker water extractions with fire chiefs from Beach Park, Winthrop Harbor and Zion outlining last month what they need, according to a June 25 front-page News-Sun story by Joseph States.
While the departments have a couple of jet-skis and a 24-foot rescue boat, officials say that the equipment is not enough to combat Lake Michigan's menacing seas.
Crucial to the rescue mission is a boat able to deal with waves more than two feet high, beach patrols during peak summer times and increased water-rescue training, Winthrop Harbor Fire Chief Rocco Campanella said. The total price tag would be more than $1 million, with $750,000 alone for a new boat.
Ironically, while the departments are quick to respond to water emergencies on the lake, they really don't have authority over Lake Michigan. 'Where the sand and water meet, our jurisdiction is over,' Campanella said.
Nevertheless, thankfully for those they've saved, they do respond swiftly. Currently, if one is in jeopardy in treacherous lake waters, don't expect Illinois officials to come to the rescue.
Illinois taxpayers paid for the $73 million shoreline restoration project at Illinois Beach, which takes in most of the Lake Michigan waterfront from its main entrance off Wadsworth Road, east of Sheridan Road north to the Wisconsin state line. That work accomplished what planners should have expected: An uptick in attendance from an estimated 1.2 million visitors in 2015 to more than 2 million last year.
The state needs to come up with funding to ease the stress rescuers must feel every time they take to an often-angry Lake Michigan. Our lawmakers spent enough money in the recently enacted budget.
They could have shoehorned in another million or so to save lives on this coast. Lives of those who might be their constituents.