A long-running mass inner tube event in MI ended unexpectedly Sunday with a trip to Canada, with so many Americans blown across the maritime border by wind that Canadian officials had to set up a temporary screening area for the inadvertent immigrants.
Advertisement
Sarnia police said there were no significant injuries in the rescue operation, which was made necessary when brisk winds sabotaged the Port Huron Float Down, an annual unlicensed cavalcade of small watercraft down the St. Clair River separating Canada and the United States. But the winds added an unusual twist.
Those 1,500 revelers were all put on Sarnia Transit buses and brought back to Port Huron, Mich. without incident or questioning (and without passports, most likely).
They say it took hours for a bus service to transport some 1,500 USA citizens back to MI. It begins at Port Huron’s Lighthouse beach, MI and ends at Chrysler beach in Marysville.
“The people who take part in this are not mariners”. CCGS Limnos and several Coast Guard fast rescue craft were extremely busy throughout the day as many floaters entered the water when their rafts deflated.
“It was a bit of a nightmare, but we got through it”, Clarke said.
Peter Garapick of the Canadian Coast Guard, told CBC news: “There were people in places you’d never think something would float, but there were Americans everywhere”.
The straggling US citizens had to be rescued by all of Sarnia police, the OPP, the Canadian Coast Guard, Canada Border Service Agency, as well as workers from a nearby chemical company, Lanxess Canada.
On its Facebook page, the Sarnia Police Department posted that “it got a little insane”, but that everything worked out in the end.
Hundreds of USA revellers ended up in Canada, without identification, after winds blew them off course during an event on the St. Clair River.
The local Sarnia police department live-tweeted the whole fiasco as they tried to safely return the revelers back to their home country.
Floaters get in the water at Port Huron and exit at Marysville- the Canada excursion is optional- and not recommended.
“It would certainly make life easier and make it safer for everyone involved”, he said.
Advertisement
A Facebook page for the more than 30-year-old event posted online Sunday night, thanking the Canadians for their hospitality: “You’ve shown us true kindness and what it means to be awesome neighbors!”
