Fire & Rescue
In its 12th year, Operation: River Watch continues to impress in La Crosse
After 12 years, you can start to take the extraordinary for granted.
La Crosse Police would like to avoid that with a truly extraordinary volunteer effort that likely helped keep this year’s Oktoberfest mostly safe for everyone.
Operation: River Watch is in its 12th year of keeping the wandering and inebriated from falling in the Mississippi.
There were 30 volunteers this year for Oktoberfest. They turned back 52 people from the park after hours with not so much as a wet sock.
Many of those contacts were drunk and could have easily run into problems in the river.
Plenty to cheer about with those volunteers Police Sergeant Tom Walsh said.
“It’s just a great story and something we should all be proud of,” Walsh said. “Weekend like this, with these RIverwatch volunteers and what these kids did for us over the weekend … I couldn’t be prouder to be a police officer here in the city of La Crosse.”
River Watch started in 2006 as a response to multiple river drowning deaths of mostly college students attributed to high levels of intoxication.
It’s staffed by college student volunteers while the school year is in session from 11 p.m. until 3 a.m.
Rick Hamilton
October 4, 2018 at 4:52 pm
It is impressive that the group of volunteers has maintained the continues Thursday , Friday and Saturday river watch. What is not impressive is the city’s refusal to make the easy changes to make the 770 feet of river levee safe for humans 24/7 and not just for a few hours 3 nights a week. Turning 52 away is impressive as it would only take one to trip over the curb on the brick boardwalk of this levee. (by the way levee are meant to hold back water, not people, and likewise should not have access to walk on. But a 42 inch high decorative railing where the current 5 inch high brick curb is would go a long ways for year round safety. (curbs are meant to stop vehicles and equipment with wheels, they actually can cause tripping falls for people)