Rough seas knock personal watercraft driver off; he was missing for over two hours
On Saturday, it looked like the Memorial Day weekend was shaping up to be a busy one out on the water in South Florida.
But, torrential rains and strong winds that crept in Saturday and barraged the region all day Sunday and Monday put an end to those plans for most boaters.
“Saturday was busy, a lot of activity, but no significant events in Miami-Dade,” said Officer Ronald Washington, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “Sunday and today, the weather has kept things quiet so far.”
The situation was the same in the Keys, although the weekend got off to a dramatic start Saturday afternoon when FWC officers, U.S. Coast Guard crews and a private tow boat searched for a man who was forced off his personal watercraft by a wave as storms whipped up off Key Largo.
The search began around 4:30 p.m. after a boater noticed the vessel drifting with no one on it in Blackwater Sound, said Officer Bobby Dube, spokesman for the FWC in the Keys.
Within 15 minutes, an FWC officer spotted a man in the shallow water offshore, Dube said. He was brought aboard the FWC patrol boat and treated for minor injuries.
“The operator informed officers that while riding his PWC in the bay, he was overtaken by a strong storm, knocked off his watercraft by a rogue wave and was unable to stay with his PWC as it drifted away by the wind from the stormy weather,” Dube said.
The man, whom police did not identify, said he was in the water for more than two hours before he was rescued.
Dube said FWC officers also made several boating-under-the influence arrests over the weekend.
Memorial Day weekend marks the last big weekend before the end of the two checkpoints that were set up March 27 to keep visitors out of the Florida Keys to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. They’re scheduled to come down June 1, and Keys hotels can once again begin accepting guests at 50 percent of their capacity.
Monroe County also wants to allow vacation rental homes to open, but it must receive approval from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. County Administrator Roman Gastesi submitted its plan to the agency last week.
The county hopes the plan will be approved in time for next Monday’s reopening.
As the Keys, and the rest of South Florida, prepare to slowly get back to normal, cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, continue to rise in the region.
According to Monday’s report from the Florida Department of Health, the state added another 879 confirmed cases, bringing the total to 51,746. Of that, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties accounted for 429 of those cases, or 48.8 percent.
South Florida had nine of the 15 newly reported deaths, pushing the state death toll to 2,252. The death count in the Keys had held steady at three since late April, but the Health Department reported one more death in the Keys on Monday.
Brandie Peretz, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health in Monroe County, said the person was a 91-year-old woman who had underlying chronic health conditions.
This story was originally published May 25, 2020 at 2:25 PM.
