You know several people have driven over that drop.

Sometime when I was a teen in the mid 80’s we road to the dam while it was flooding and it was all the way up and over the banks and the picnic area was under water. I have never seen such a sight. It was definitely an awesome sight to see such power. Seems like it was over or nearly over the wings on the side too.

Oliver in Tuscaloosa was like that couple weeks ago. It just disturbed the current some. There was no drop to it at all.

Cable with floats on upper end large enough to hook a boat too would be an option just more expense. Debris would be an issue.

This is Oliver lock after a lot of rain in Tuscaloosa couple months ago, bottom of river level with top of dam.

This may have been true for a while after 9/11, but I don’t think it’s true now. At theTennessee River dams I’m familiar with, you can motor right up next to them and fish, on either side. I see it all the time. Granted, water conditions would dictate whether or not you could/should do it.

Alabama Power/COE may have a different policy. I’m not familiar with any of those dams.

The captain of that boat made a terrible decision. I caught myself thinking, “why didn’t they beach the boat?” Honestly if they launched 1/2 mile from the dam, by the find they got in the current they probably had less than a minute to do anything. I know when fishing below Guntersville, with just the turbines on, I can drift 1/2 mile down river even with my trolling motor on wide open in just a minute or two.

True! It looks like the river just keeps on going.

They delayed launching due to engine problems. They fixed it, but I wonder if it failed again once they got out on the water? A trolling motor would be useless in that current. My coworker said they had footage on the dam security camera of them being in the boat as it went through the floodgate. Again, this is all unverified.

you really can't see that drop at night even when the river isn't up...real scary.

I saw a boat go over in the early 80,s at flood stage, kept going at Demopolis.

TWRA has confirmed video footage of the boat going through the floodgates around 8:30 Saturday morning with all 3 on board. I haven’t found any reports that they got the outboard running. The tournament director gave them permission to use the trolling motor and go ahead and fish. ALL of this is documented.

Wow, horrible. And then nobody even realized they were missing until that night b/c everyone just thought they were out fishing and then when the tournament was wrapping up they just assumed they hadn't even fished b/c of the engine problems.

I definitely don’t mean to come across like I’m pointing fingers because hind sight is 20/20 and throwing rocks at anyone won’t do any good. BUT...with all the rain we have had, and the water levels, there is absolutely ZERO reason to be having a fishing tournament under the circumstances. Especially a high school tournament. Boat captain shouldn’t have gone out with motor problems knowing the water was what it was. Tournament director should have canceled the tournament all together. Again, I hope I don’t sound like I’m coming across as an insensitive a$$. I hope and pray for a miracle, even though the situation doesn’t look good. If this ends poorly, I hope a lot of these tournament organizers, schools, chaperones, etc...learn a lot of lessons here.

this. In deleted 3 comments I was going to post yesterday basically word for word I just did not want to be insensitive like you said. But it is mind blowing the lack of common sense and poor decisions made in this accident.

No, it was Sunday before they were reported missing. The tournament was over Saturday evening. For the life of me I can’t figure that one out.

Wiley, do you know if the tournament director allowed them to go out like that as a competitor, or if they had withdrawn from the tournament and he told them they could go out on their own? I ask because if they were competing, the director should have never left if they didn’t check back in. If he had released them from the tournament, and they were out on their own, he may not have known they weren’t back. The school tournaments my boys have been in stress the fact that you are required to check in, even to the point of disqualifying the whole school team if a single boat leaves without checking in. I assumed they all did that to deter someone from leaving early without being accounted for.

Also, I saw a TWRA update video a little while ago stating they are officially changing the status to a search and recovery. It’s no longer a rescue in their eyes.

I can't imagine a scenario where I would get on any of the rivers right now without the main engine running correctly. Very very sad.

Me either ... I don't understand what the thought process was that even made that seem like a good idea.

We keep a twin engine boat for when we have to go out in these situations it is unlikely for both to fail. dam sure aint going on a flooded river in a boat with known problems.