A massive rescue operation was launched north of Owen Sound on March 8 after 23 fishermen became adrift. Several agencies, including local fire and emergency teams, responded to the Hibou Conservation Area to retrieve the group from a floating ice sheet.
Read The Scuba News Canada Article: No Ice is Safe Ice: Anglers Rescued by Helicopter From Unstable Georgian Bay Ice
When a drifting ice sheet carrying 23 fishermen began moving into open water on March 8, Owen Sound Fire and Emergency Services joined a multi-agency effort to bring them to safety. The crisis began near the Hibou Conservation Area when the ice floe unexpectedly broke away from the shoreline.
At a council meeting this past Monday, Owen Sound’s Deputy Mayor, Scott Greig, notified his peers of his intent to seek a detailed financial breakdown regarding the city’s role in the rescue. He plans to introduce a formal motion on April 13 that would direct staff to calculate the city’s expenses and bill the rescued individuals accordingly.
In a Wednesday interview with Global News, Greig defended the move, stating that the dangerous situation was entirely avoidable and should have been anticipated by those involved.
One of the 23 individuals saved, Alfie How, disagrees with the Deputy Mayor’s assessment. How argues that with ice thickness reaching 16 inches, the group had no way of predicting the rapid weather shift that caused a seven-kilometer-wide expanse of ice to detach.
A formal vote on the matter is slated for the April 13 council meeting.
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