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Photos: City fire practices water rescue on Tonawanda Creek

By Howard B. Owens

City firefighters were at the Tonawanda Creek behind the courthouse this morning for some water rescue practice. It was a fairly simple exercise -- get the inflatable raft in the creek and guide it using ropes to waterfalls. It's been some years since anybody has drowned in this area of the creek, but the firefighters wanted to put together a plan to get the raft to the falls in case anybody ever becomes stuck there.

kevin kretschmer

That maneuver will work fine, as long as there is almost no water going over the low head dam. Try it the way it's rigged presently with some real volume flowing and I guarantee as soon as the boat crosses the boil line there will be more victims in the water. Low head dams are killing machines for a reason.

Aug 18, 2010, 2:55pm Permalink

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