it's a monthly visit to staying safe with the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission here at WRJN,
our guest deputy Jerome Hipper, he is the Racine County Sheriff's Office winter,
that's in the winter. For water patrol and Tom Knitter is here as well, he puts us all together
for us every month. Welcome to that beauty. Welcome. Thank you. I got to ask you first. Is this
one of those jobs, especially during the summer, right now it's a little cool, but in July and August,
when it's hot outside, the people say, oh yeah, who do you have to kiss up to to get the water patrol?
Pretty much. Yeah, I hear that a lot. I just get to cruise around like Michigan all summer long. It's
it's a rough job. Is that what you do all that just cruise around? That cruise around event,
just make sure everybody's following the safety rules and they're staying safe. A couple of
lemonade's out there, sandwich, maybe put a fishing line in just in case. Yeah, we haven't
got authorization for that yet, but we keep trying. Okay, it's a serious job because people do get in
trouble. I saw the news yesterday. This guy was parasailing, not parasailing, wind sailing,
and he hit a whale. The whale just came up out of the water. Boom, knocked them right out and he was
in the water. Whale wasn't heard. He wasn't heard. He said it was a odd thing, but wow,
he was just gliding on the way. You ran right into him. You never know what's going to come out of
the water or what's going to happen? We don't have whales in Lake Michigan yet, so we don't know.
So tell us about the job water safety. What do you do? And it kicks in what tomorrow you say?
We're going to be launching our boats either today or tomorrow. So we'll have the boats in the
water and then basically he's just going around making sure everybody's staying safe. We check
boats to make sure that they're up on their safety codes and that they're following the rules.
We also keep an eye on North Beach in the swim area there. Make sure the boats are staying out
of it and trying to keep the swimmers in it because it's the safest area to swim in.
And we did have some trouble in North Beach in the past several years. I remember,
if you're at a North Beach right at the end with a pier is I'm over somebody drowned there.
We've had several people drown there off North Pier and that's due to a lot of the conditions
and the weight patterns there. I never got involved in a rip current. In my mind, I can't imagine
not being able to move in a rip current. I grew up on the beach. I grew up on the Atlantic Ocean.
I was there every day during the summer. I never got into that kind of situation though.
Well, you can move in a rip current. The problem is a rip current is moving away from shore and it's
moving at a high velocity. So you're not going to be able to fight it and get back to shore.
You actually have to swim sideways so that you get out of the current or you're just going to exhaust
yourself and not move anywhere or even move further out if the current's strong enough.
I hear stories about it all the time. I just was never involved in it so I can't imagine it.
I was talking about boating. The boats are going in the water. Your boats are going in tomorrow.
People boating yet. Well, actually, there's already a couple of boats in the marina.
So there are boats that have been going out. Okay. You've got to watch what you're doing when
you have a boat. I've been out about three boats in my lifetime. I told you I'm not a big water person
but I love it when I go out as long as somebody else is taking care of all the boating.
How do you prepare yourself for getting out this season? Obviously you have to have a license,
yes. If you're under a certain age, you have to have a license through DNR to operate a boat.
And if you're doing anything commercially, you have to have cams license.
But basically it's making sure your boat's in good shape. It's maintained. It has all the
safety equipment, fire extinguishers, flares, PFDs are big. We actually want people to wear the PFDs
on the boat, not just have them with because if you fall off the boat and the PFDs in it, it doesn't
do you any good? PFD personal flotation device. Correct. Yeah, learn that. You know how I learned it?
When we do this last year, I learned that phrase. Now what do you have to have my law in your boat
before you launch it? Well, it depends on the size of the boat. So boats under a certain amount
need different requirements than boats over 16 foot. But the biggest things are fire extinguishers,
flares in case you get in trouble, the PFDs. If it's an open construction boat, you actually have to
have a lanyard so that if you fall off, it kills the engine. So it just doesn't keep going without
you. No, that's interesting. I saw once on the news, the boat was going around in circles
because somebody fell off and the boat was going around and somebody in your position made a
leap onto the boat and shut it down. I said, whoa, one inch in. He would have been in the water
getting run over by the boat, but he had to just stop it. Yeah, you got to stop him somehow. That's
what I mean. You're just forward to shut it down. And that boat automatically kicked the engine
one side and start that circle. And it happens often where people fall out by themselves,
the boat circles and it ends up hitting them run them over. So we've actually trained to go up
to another boat, jump into it and then shut it down. Life jackets, a lot of people say,
I'm not going to wear that thing. When I got on the boat, I, where's the lifejack? I need one that
fits me. And you're looking at me now. I lost 34 pounds, but I was bigger. And I said, I need one
here. This is one of the kids. No, I don't want a kids one. I won't want to fit me because if I go
in, you know, I can swim, but I don't know if I could swim in the ocean. But proper size is key.
You got to have the right fit for the person. And there's actually lifejacket stations down by the
launch, the small boat basin. And then that DNR has a program. People can borrow life jackets from
and then hang them up. There's little spots to hang them up so that they dry and then they get
put back inside when they're done. Now, do you have to have a lifejacket for everybody? Is that
a law? It's a good idea. What is it a law? No, it's a law. You have to have one lifejacket that
fits for everybody on board. So if you have some kid life jackets and you're counting them for
adults, that's not going to cut it. What's the penalty? It's a $232 fine cheaper to get them.
It's a lot cheaper to get them. Here's another big thing drinking a lot of people party on these
boats. And even if you think you can handle your alcohol out in the heat, it even makes it worse
when you're drinking. Yeah, it can affect you more even though your alcohol content is the same,
but your judgment is going to be less because of your body reacts differently when you're out in the
heat and out in the sun. So we don't recommend drinking when you're driving the boats. It's just not
a safe thing to do. There was a famous case and I think it's still in the courts.
A wealthy guy, he was a lawyer and his son, I can't remember the name of this guy if I said it,
I think you'd know the case. His son, one of a bunch of his teenage friends on the boat,
they were all drinking and he went under a bridge and he hit one of the the the violence,
violence in the bridge and young girl fell out and drowned. And he tried to make it that it wasn't
his son's fault. And it was his son's fault. And you know, when kids get out in boats and they
start drinking, everything's I can handle the alcohol. No, I don't drink. So I don't know what it's
like to have that, but it's dangerous stuff. It is. It really is. Now, can you get a DIY on water
like you can on land? You can. Yep. If you're over the limit or you're being impaired by the alcohol,
you can get an operating wall toxicated on a boat. Now, how do you know when to stop a car,
they're speeding, they're swirving all over the. How do you know when to stop a boat?
It all depends on what they're doing. We have to see something that we can clearly establish that,
you know, they're drunk from that. A lot of times we stop for another reason. You know,
if they have something else going on and then when we start talking to them and interacting with
them, you can definitely tell. Yeah. I saw another one on one of those YouTube channels. They tried
to stop this giant cabin grizzly was stolen. And unlike on land, you can't do a pit maneuver.
Especially when the police force one third, the size of this luxury yacht or whatever it was,
it was a yacht. And he stole it and eventually they boxed him in and the yacht got damaged. But
they got it back and they could fix it. But a dangerous stuff on the water. I mean,
we're looking, we've jumped before they have any good time out there, but it's just like land,
you're getting trouble and it is. And it's even more so dangerous than land where it's harder for
people to get out to you when you need help. You know, on here at land, you can get squad cars
rolling to you pretty quickly and get a lot of people there when you need help out there.
It's pretty much just us. It's staying safe. They're seeing county traffic safe to commission,
water safety, deputy Jerome Hipper is here. He's on the water patrol. That's kind of neat.
Deputy down the water patrol kicks in tomorrow for you guys. Yep. We're going to get the boats in
and start patrol on the water now that the ice is fine with that. The weather's getting a little
least a little bit nicer or it was thunderstorms tomorrow. Pretty dangerous. It can be,
but we've got the gear for it. We've got the boats for it. We got a big 41 footer. It can handle
quite a bit. Okay. And the town leader is here from the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission as
well. Let's talk about personal water craft. Let's talk about operating that boat generally during
daylight hours. Tough at night because it really can't see much. Well, you can't see much.
What personal water crafts have no lights on them. They're not allowed to be operated at night
at all due to that fact. And they're just they go fast. They're hard to see. So the state decided
that they're not allowed to be operated at night. This operator is 12 to 15 years old.
Have to have a valid boating safety certificate 12 years old. Yep. 12 years old with a
Vellus certificate from DNR and you can operate them. 12 years old. When I was 12 years old,
I operated by two wheelers. That's what that was a lot. Wow. And a boy horse play never
operate a personal water craft basing backward. No, it's not safe to do at all. You're going to
fall off of this. This is obvious stuff. Some people still need to be reminded about it.
Whoa. All right. Got some safety tips here. Plan that file a boat plan with a trusted person
including your route and a return time. Don't file it with a person who's in the boat with you.
Bad idea. That's a very bad idea. Yeah, we need somebody to be able to tell us where you're going
and about the time you're supposed to be back. If you go missing and we have to try and come find
you charts. You need charts in the boat too. Now you need them for Lake Michigan.
It depends on where you're going. If you're going near shore, you do. There are some areas that
get really shallow. That's why we have the lighthouse outside Racine because there's a reef out
there. It's not like three feet alcohol. Now alcohol in the sun is even worse than alcohol
sitting in your living room. Correct. Yeah. It affects you a lot more out in the sun.
You got a lot of alcoholic people out there during the summer. We get a lot of people that are
drinking. We don't get too many people that are actually impaired. It's usually the passengers
on the boat who are having a good time and most of our boat operators are very responsible.
That's good. Everybody else has a good time. You don't. That's like you're the designated driver.
Exactly. You're just the designated operator. That's good. All right. Let's talk about safety tips.
Let's talk about rules. There were certain rules and regulations boating. Now you don't have to
have a boating license if you're an adult. You don't have to have a boating license if you're
born after a certain date. So it's an age thing and it's slowly progressing. So there are adults
out there. In fact, we have adults that are on our water safety patrol that have to have their
boating certificate just operate our own boats. Whether huge, if you see like tomorrow having
thunderstorms, if you see violent thunderstorms on the lake, it's got to be a red flag where you're
not to go out. It is or a red flag to get back in. The weather in Lake Michigan can change very
quickly. I've seen it going from almost no waves to five six footers that are going to
cause some little boats problems and probably even swamp them and it changes very fast out there.
Let's go on some of these requirements. Personal flotation devices. Lifejack, it said is
one properly sized life jacket is required per person. Now types one, two, and three are wearable.
What is that? That means you types one, two, and three you can put on and wear a type four is
a throwable. So it's like a seat cushion that's designed as a type four PFT. You can't wear it.
Well, that's a type to have on a on an airplane. It'd be similar to something on an airplane,
not quite the same, but very close. And those are required on bigger boats as well. Have a
throwable. Okay, somebody falls in. And then there's even a type five, which is a specific
operational use. And those have to be worn to be counted. You can't just be in a boat with you.
One guy on comedian said when he heard over the PA system on the plane,
your seat cushion will serve as a personal flotation device. He said, no, we going down. That
seat cushion serving is my toilet. He's right. All right. What's a type V that must be worn
considered legal? That's the type five. That's the wrong number. That five. Okay. That's good.
So you have to know these things. Fire extinguishers. You think that would be obvious because boats can
overheat engines can catch fire. There's gasoline and oil moving around in there. You also have
the battery compartments. So yeah, fire extinguishers are definitely must and make sure that it's
operational and that the little dial on it is in the green and not the red because they do go
bad over time. They have expiration dates and they have to be current. I don't want to sound
too with animals for it. I'm looking for is too paranoid, but we have a whole bunch of
fire extinguishes at home. Got them like all over the place. A little fire extinguisher. I'm ready.
I regret some of them are powder ones. Yep. And those work just fine. You can use those on the boat as
well. We got them in all rooms in the house and we always says, what do you have so many? I'm ready.
You just never know. I'm not going to burn. So one thing I would suggest with that done is
at least once a year turn the fire extinguisher over a little bit.
Do you want to ride back here? Sure, because the powder can compress and it can
okay. Yeah, these are little ones though. We keep in the room. Same thing. Yeah, so we got one
right there. We have people come in and check it from the fire extinguisher company. It comes in.
All right, navigation lights. These are important. These are the running lights on boats.
Correct. Yep. You've got green and red ones so that other boats when they see you know which way
you're going and which way they need to go to avoid you and then white ones as well just for
visibility. What is a build ventilation system? What is that? So build is a compartment in the boat
that's enclosed. It's usually like where the engines and stuff are if you don't have outboards.
The ventilation system is basically a fan that takes those gases that are building up in there and
pushes them outside the boat so that it doesn't blow up. It's a visual distress signal. That's
the flares. Yep. Flares are visual distress signals. So they do. So they have some that are very
similar to road flares, but they're made out of special materials so you can hold them in your hand
and then they have the area ones that you can just shoot into the air when you're in distress.
How far away can you see those? It depends on which flare it is. The ones that go into the air,
the smaller ones are visible for like a mile or two and they have some really high-powerful ones
that have like parachutes on them that they're visible quite a ways. Last two minutes,
you have to talk about North Beach. You think some improvements out there, huh? Yep. Yeah,
so we've put in some life rings off of North Pier by North Beach. So if anybody falls in,
they can be thrown a life ring and pulled back in. There's also a sign out there that indicates
if it's safe to go in the water or not, if you should be swimming in the water, because it's hard
to tell sometimes by looking at it, which way the currents are going, the wind is going. So they're
trying to keep everybody safe there. A biggest thing I can do if they're going to go out swimming is
swim in swim area. It's specifically moved away from North Pier so that the currents that developed
aren't going through the swim area. And there's lifeguards there in case you get in trouble.
And we're not talking about the New Year's Day stuff like my wife used to jump into the lake
when it's like 10 degrees outside. Yeah, the polar flunch. I said, what are you doing this?
You know, no good to get a come out of it, okay? You even get a cold sick or fall in the water
and freeze one of the, but they had lifeguards all around watching people. So much hope for that
triathlon they used to do. Yeah, we had a lot of lifeguards. We even had dive team members out for
that. Just case people got in trouble. Now they once told me how they know if someone got lost in
the water, they count the number of bicycles. And if there's one bicycle left over, somebody
didn't get out of the water. And that's clever. Yeah, that is how they did it. Now they're
tracking them a little bit better and numbers and they can even use devices. All right, so what do
they miss today? Anything I get them all in? No, I think you got everything covered.
The biggest thing is if you're going to go on like Michigan and swim, learn how to swim and swim
in the swim area. It'll keep you the safest. You know how much I went into like Michigan once
up to my ankles. And it was nice. That's cool. Cooled my feet down as to walk my dog on the one
of the ends where you're allowed to walk dogs. And I put my feet on the water in the dog who's
trying to get away from the water. But I grew, you know, it's funny because I grew up in the ocean.
I was out in the ocean every single day. And now I don't like the water. I don't know why. And
this is calmer than what I used to do. I mean, there were heavy waves one time up in the water.
I was eight, nine years old. My mother wasn't watching me as usual. And I looked, I was looking
for them and a wave took me and turned me upside down over and over and over. And I was, I was
sucking in the water. And then the wave went out and got one person. It was busy. Not one person
helped me. I guess they just thought I was having fun. And I'm like, maybe that's why I'm going
to the water. That could very well be it. That's what we're trying to avoid. Now you're going to
tell us we have something else going on. Something new. A couple of new topics. This is Tom
Knitter, by the way. Yes. Good morning. And thanks for having us on this morning. A couple of new
topics that we're going to be introducing in the next few months. So we're going to try to come
up with a poster that deals with rail crossing or grade crossings with railroads and railroad
safety. There's a number of people that take a lot of chances when they try to beat the train.
I'll tell you something. I grew up a block from the Long Island Railroad. And I can't tell you
how many people got killed. Two friends of mine killed on the crossing the tracks. And many other
cars hit. Now they're elevated. Because my mother in a bunch of hundreds of other mothers took
their kids and everything formed a human chain link around the busiest highway. Nobody in
till we meet with the railroad people. The cops are there trying to break them. What do you do with
these mothers? You can't be Billy clubbing them. You can't be tear gas and mothers with their
children. So they were smart. They brought the kids and they met with the Long Island Railroad
official. And today the railroad track is raised thanks to those mothers because they got a commitment
from the news crews were there. That was their job. They said, we lost so many people dying.
And so they raised the tracks to this day. Thank you. Deputy Jerome Hipper from the Racine
County Sheriff's Office. He's on the water patrol kicking in tomorrow. Correct. You got
you lemonade. You got your sandwiches. And it's a little too cold yet to be kicking back out
there. But we'll get there. And Tom did it from the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission.
Thank you for coming. Thanks for arranging these things. We're very welcome. We'll see you next
month again. First Wednesday of the month. Very good. And we'll do that. Water Safety.
