Staff reports
Charleston Gazette-Mail
Despite the deep freeze that we’ve suffered through in the Charleston area for the last week, ice that’s formed during that time on local lakes and ponds is not safe.
Even with five days of below- freezing high temperatures and single-digit lows most nights, the message is clear: Don’t walk on the ice.
“We don’t allow anybody out on [Coonskin Lake],” said Jeff Hutchinson, executive director of Kanawha County Parks and Recreation. “There is water movement under the surface [ice], and it’s not safe for anyone.”
Ice in the Kanawha River is also not safe. Barge traffic and the constant flow of water downriver toward Point Pleasant, Mason County — where the Kanawha empties into the Ohio River — means the only ice you’ll likely see this weekend on the Kanawha is along the shorelines.
Aside from drowning, the most serious effect of falling through ice is hypothermia, a condition where the body’s internal temperature drops from the normal — about 98 degrees — to below 95 degrees.
Currently, the water in the Kanawha River is about 33 degrees, according to the National Weather Service in Charleston.
According to the National Center for Cold Water Safety, in 33-degree water, an immersed person could see these effects:
■ 2 minutes: Loss of dexterity inlimbs
■ 15 minutes: Unconsciousness
■ 45 minutes: Death
Ice should be a minimum of 4 inches thick to be safe for the average adult to walk on it, said Kevin Law, a professor of meteorology at Marshall University. Law is alsoWest Virginia’s state climatologist.
“We haven’t had an average temperature cold enough for long enough to develop safe ice,” Law said. “I remember hearing about the winter of 1977-78 where the Ohio River froze, but you had a whole month of below-freezing temperatures.”
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