Technology could help make Kincardine’s pier safer, group says

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A remote-controlled rescue board could help reduce drownings at Kincardine’s south pier at Station Beach, a citizens’ committee suggested to Kincardine town council Monday.

Five people have drowned on the south side of the south pier at Station Beach since 2008, including Aleem Ramji, who died trying to rescue his two cousins after a wave washed them off the pier last September. They survived.

The area is notorious for creating rip currents, which can hamper swimmers’ efforts to make it back to shore. High water has added danger, more people are visiting the area and some don’t realize the lake’s potential to take lives.

The concerned Kincardine citizens group is calling for a remote-controlled rescue device for times when the lake’s too dangerous for a rescuer to swim out.

A remote-controlled rescue board, such as the “EMILY,” Emergency Integrated Lifesaving Lanyard, is a 20-pound, battery-powered flotation device which bounces over waves and moves faster than any swimmer.

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It should allow four or five people to cling to it until more help arrives, according to a CNN news video, one of several like it on YouTube. EMILY could be launched by a volunteer firefighter or some other emergency responders, said Meagan Fair, a citizens group spokeswoman.

“The pier itself, just with its orientation, the way it points westward and the way that the waves come in, it naturally creates rip currents along the south pier,” Fair said. “So it doesn’t take much to create a dangerous situation, where people can get pulled out.”

Another idea is to put a smart traffic light warning system utilizing weather information down at Station Beach.

The town implemented some recommendations from a Lifesaving Society report, including warning signs, safety ropes and other equipment, and created no-swimming zones. Lifeguards or some sort of beach patrol was recommended but not implemented.

After the last fatality, Fair, a mother of twin eight-year-old boys, volunteered to help make Station Beach safer. She presented the group’s ideas and a video to members of Kincardine council.

The ideas include installing a defibrillator closer to the pier, installing a rescue board, prohibiting parking in an area popular with sunset watchers to allow faster emergency response access, and replacing signs and adding QR code links to safety videos to signs.

The group also proposes adding wood-and-rope railings to both the north and south piers, with brightly coloured ladders at various points to help swimmers get out of the water.

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And the group is calling for the introduction of a beach patrol or lifeguards at the beach during peak tourist season. “This could allow for reallocation of current lifeguarding staff from the Davidson Centre to the Kincardine Beach,” the group’s report suggests.

An emergency phone at the pier and reference markers to help callers direct emergency responders to which part of the beach to head to are also proposed. All told, the safety improvements would cost an estimated more than $50,000.

Fair works as a project manager at Nuclear Promise X, or NPX, a company that serves nuclear and other utilities. The company created the GBH Strong app, a local public health, government, Bruce Power information and business-support portal.

Some at NPX have already demonstrated the concept of a traffic light modified to interpret weather information could work to warn people when rip currents present a danger, Fair said. The threat level would be shared on a website as well.

She said council was enthusiastic, the volunteers were given permission to pursue some easier to implement ideas, and staff is to report back on the issue in April.