May 13, 2022 3:05p
(WGTD)---Racine County is turning to technology to keep Lake Michigan swimmers safe.
County Executive Jonathan Delagrave says lifeguards at the Zoo and North beaches this summer will be able to send remote-control buoys to swimmers in trouble. Also, the county this summer plans to employ homing beacons to notify swimmers of water conditions and will use floating barriers to define swimming areas. "This is not going to prevent drowning but we want to make sure that we're doing everything in our abilities to be able to mitigate this as much as possible," Delagrave said this week. "We're done messing around with this."
The latter comment is borne in frustration from the five drowning deaths that occurred off of Racine's shoreline last year.
Just a couple of days after Delagrave spoke, the body of a boater was pulled from Lake Michigan off of Racine. The Chicago man had been in the process of piloting his sailboat from Chicago to Racine on Thursday. The suspected cause of death wasn't immediately released. He was found floating in the lake, still wearing a floatation device.
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