ALGONAC, Mich. (WWJ) – A U.S. Coast Guard investigation is underway after a small boat was spotted floating in the St. Clair River near Algonac on Tuesday.
The Coast Guard is treating it as a situation of distress, Lt. Jeremiah Schlissel of the Coast Guard in Detroit told WWJ.
While officials are unsure whether anyone was ever aboard the vessel, Schlissel says the Coast Guard has to treat it as a distress situation until they can prove otherwise.
Oftentimes, Schlissel says, people will have boats or other watercraft in the water and they will be swept away and drift after becoming untied.
“What happens often is, it turns out not to be distress, but as the Coast Guard, we basically have to treat this as a distress situation until we can actually prove that it blew off somebody’s property,” Schlissel said.
The Coast Guard Cutter Bristol Bay was searching in the river for any signs of someone in distress, while a helicopter from Air Station Detroit was performing search patterns in the area for any signs, Schlissel said.
Schlissel is urging boat owners to make sure things are properly marked when they go in the water.
“There’s no identifying markings on it, which makes it a lot more difficult for us to confirm if there is distress or not,” he said. “That’s just another thing that we like to stress to the public, too – when you have property that is able to go into the water that it’s properly marked.”
The investigation is still ongoing.
Anyone has any information concerning this vessel is asked to call the SEC Detroit Command Center at 313-568-9560
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