Deadly River Conditions
May 1, 2023 - Placer County Sheriff's Office officials report that on Friday, they put out a public safety announcement warning the public to stay out of Placer County’s rivers and explained why river water is so much more dangerous and deadly this year, but still, people chose to go in this weekend. Read on for the full story.
On the evening of Saturday, April 29th, a group of friends from Placer and Sacramento Counties visited the American River in Auburn. Around 7:45 p.m., the Placer County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call stating one of the friends had been swept away in the river, prompting an immediate ground response by State Parks, CAL FIRE, and PCSO. The California Highway Patrol also launched its helicopter to assist in search efforts for the male. Despite the highly dangerous river conditions, the Placer County Technical Rescue Team’s river raft was deployed into the water to search for the victim. Additional resources used were drones, and a plane utilizing FIRIS technology (Fire Integrated Real-Time Intelligence System).
At midnight Sunday, April 30th, operations were switched to a limited but continuous search. CHP’s helicopter and PCSO’s Falcon 30 helicopter will continue to search by air as river conditions are much too dangerous for our teams to conduct a ground search. As of Sunday morning, the victim has not been located.
Please let this incident serve as an example of why we are warning the public to stay out of the river.
View video here.
Source: Placer County Sheriff's Office
