The King County Sheriff’s Office issued a media release May 14 to remind everyone that water safety at area rivers and lakes should be of paramount importance this weekend.<\/p>\n
Most drowning deaths in King County occur in April, May, and July, including 56 percent (9 out of 16 deaths) in 2009.<\/p>\n
With the first really good weather forecast of the season this weekend, people are expected to take to the area\u2019s lakes and rivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the weather will be great, the rivers and lakes of King County are still very cold and the rivers are fast moving, and extremely dangerous,\u201d said Sheriff Sue Rahr.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began releasing water from the Howard Hanson Dam on May 12. Flows on the Green River will be high through at least May 15.<\/p>\n
That means the Green River will be even more dangerous than usual, especially for unprepared or inexperienced users.<\/p>\n
Fast-moving river waters can pull unsuspecting users under logjams left over from the winter, and drowning results.<\/p>\n
The rivers and lakes are still very cold from snow melt-off, so hypothermia is a problem. Hypothermia affects everyone, no matter their age, size or experience and takes away a person’s ability to swim or tread water.<\/p>\n
Lifeguards have not been assigned to designated swimming areas yet.<\/p>\n
Officials recommend to wear a Coast Guard approved life jacket while boating, or even if floating on an inner tube. All children younger than 12 must wear a life jacket while on any boat shorter than 19 feet. All boats must have a life jacket for everyone on board.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want King County residents to have a great time outdoors this summer,\u201d said Sheriff Rahr. \u201cBut use common sense and stay safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The King County Sheriff’s Office issued a media release May 14 to remind everyone that water safety at area rivers and lakes should be of paramount importance this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18917"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}