It all comes after a man's bodys
recovered from Folsom Lake just days ago.
He was swimming on the American River
near Auburn when he was swept a.
ABC10's Luke Clary is live in the studio.
And Luke, you spoke to people in that area?
Yeah, and the water is moving
really fast and it's so cold.
I have to tell you, I was surprd
to see the number of families,
even some with small children,
swimming in these dangerous conditions.
Our refuge from the California .
Our rivers draw us in,
but there is danger here. I'm
standing here near the confluence of the
North and Middle Forks of the American
River at the Auburn State Recreation Area,
and let me tell you this water
is ice cold to the touch.
And when you look up from the s,
you can see what looks like
Rapids forming on both forks.
This water is moving so fast.
And I was like,
I could take a dip and just come out.
This 21 year old Sack state
undergrad is here with his brot.
You guys have family that
know that you're out here.
They do, but they won't be
able to save me, if anything.
So it doesn't really matter.
A dark thought, a lifeguard
warning them how risky this was
initially. Just an educational piece of
you are really flirting with disaster,
you know what I mean?
And we cannot if you were to
get in the water right now.
I guarantee you that we would
be able to get you out alive.
Cal Fire Captain Rick Salas,
his Placer County Swift Water Re
Team has been involved in abouta
dozen emergency calls on the rir
this year 2 with deadly consequences.
22 year old Victor Nguyen of Antelope
was swept away on April 29th and found
miles down river at Folsom Laken
Friday and it's happening statee
on Kings River in Fresno County.
Two children drown when their
mother tried to take them across
the river without life jackets.
Stay
out of the water.
This year is different,
and unfortunately the people
that have not adhered to that
message have lost their lives.
And so anybody that is at the
river's edge or is thinking abot
getting into the river, don't dt
now. The message really doesn't
get much clearer than that until
the water levels get lower,
until the temperatures get warm.
You really don't want to swim
in the rivers in this area,
especially not without a
life jacket. And we
cannot stress this enough, especially
with holiday weekend coming up,
right? Yeah. And Brendan, even if you
think you are a really strong swimmer,
the reality of being in water le
that is such a different story.
Yeah, that's absolutely right.
The water is so cold that it can really
make your muscles feel pretty w.
Again, that's even if you
are a strong swimmer.
So very important.
Please heed these warnings to sy
out of the water, stay away fro.
We look at water temperatures
around the area right now,
especially in the Sierra,
they're very cold.
They're in the 40s and 50s and
once you get into the foothills
and valley locations,
they're in the middle 50s to
low 60s for most areas that.
But again
that's cold water,
right? When we look at the Paci,
it's also in
the 50s and 60s
right now. So the water in our
rivers is about as warm as the
water in the Pacific, which mea.
Means it is not very warm right.
There's still a lot of
snowpack up there right now,
which is 1 melting off making the rivers
high and fast and two making it cold as well.
In fact, when you look at the
percent of April first average,
we are still above a normal years worth of
snow in the central and southern Sierra.
And in fact,
when you look at the southern Sierra,
450% of the average to date is w
much snow is still sitting up t.
So we are keeping this snowpack right now.
It is melting off, but they're.
Still.
So much more snow to melt off
and with temperatures in the 90,
we've had a lot of snow melt over the
last week and a half and that has really
helped to make the rivers run high and fast.
So again, coming up on holiday
weekend with another week in the 80s,
make sure that you heed these warnings and
please stay out of the water tomorrow.
High temperatures though,
dropping from the 90s that we had today
into the lower to middle 80s tomorrow.
And Chris and Laura,
we're going to stay there all the way
through the coming holiday week.
I'm not complaining about that, Brendan.
Thank you.