(Arnolds Park)– This weekend’s University of Okoboji Winter Games simply wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of countless volunteers from throughout the community, most notably fire and rescue crews who will be on the ready in the event the worse should happen. Chris Yungbluth, Arnolds Park-Okoboji Fire and Rescue Chief, says they’ll have personnel headquartered at the station just in case this weekend…
“We put some food together at the fire station and folks kind of come and go as they need to, they’ve got to take care of some things at home, too, but have the pagers on their hips so they can respond from wherever they’re at. The majority of the time we’ll even set up a card game or something at the station and there will just be a group of us just hanging out until the wee hours of the morning to make sure that those folks who need our help, it’s done quickly. Otherwise folks have to come from home and there’s a couple of minutes delay sometimes for us to get to the station and go. On busy weekends I’ve got a great crew that comes in and they just hang out and socialize and have conversations, may be tell some bad stories about past stuff, but go from there.”
While authorities are highly urging everyone to keep vehicles off the ice this weekend, Yungbluth is offering this advice in the event the worse scenario should actually happen…
“If you do find yourself in the water with a vehicle, it’s scary to think about, but you’re going to have to let the water fill into the vehicle before you can be able to get your door open, which seems like it takes forever. We did an experience with our divers and another media person several years back and he was surprised at how long it took to equalize the pressure to be able to get your door open. Other things you can do for yourself is have a PFD if you’re out there on the lake, going to be traveling out to the middle of the lake, have some sort of flotation, and then something you can throw to help somebody else out, whether it’s an extension cord or, you know, you can get pretty compact ropes to carry with you, things like that. Ice cleats are always good. Just some basic safety gear to take along with you.”
As we’ve been reporting, the locations of a number of Winter Games events this weekend on the ice have been slightly relocated to make them more accessible for foot traffic.
