Parents Beware of Frozen Ponds Thawing

Thinking of a loved one falling through a frozen pond is terrifying. I can toss and turn at night with scenarios racing through my mind after watching our dog fall in a frozen pond several years ago.

Orcas Island is covered with frozen ponds, streams, and puddles right now. As temperatures are gradually rising from single digits in the past few days to 32° tomorrow and higher in later days, those rock-solid surfaces are transforming back into liquid – quickly.

All you have to do to see this happening before your eyes is stand on the bridge at the Outlook Inn pond. The north end of the pond is colder and appears to be ice through and through, but the south end exposed to more sunlight, while appearing to be solid ice, has clues that not everything is as it appears from the surface – no matter how long you stand still looking at the bottom and see no movement. You can hear rushing water, and if you follow that sound to the source, water from beneath the pond’s thick top ice is pouring out past gigantic icicles into the stream catchment. It falls straight down and into the tunnel that releases it onto Eastsound’s beach below the compass overlook.

Island kids don’t get to immerse themselves in snow and ice very often here. Considering it only snows once or twice each year and then melts away soon after, days like this – sunny yet below freezing – beckon them to head out in search of natural anomalies. They will likely find themselves exploring a handful of frozen ponds within a small radius.

My 13-year-old and his friend woke up this morning keen to hunt down some good ice. My son talked about wanting to army crawl over a pond to spread his weight out and thereby avert any thin cracking. Ahhh – a mother’s nightmare! My mind immediately reverted to our dog’s harrowing winter pond experience. I asked my son to give me his word that he wouldn’t do anything stupid, even above a shallow, 4-foot-deep pond. I also explained to the boys an article in Time magazine that I had read years ago about reacting in the midst of an emergency, and how an emergency is often the opposite of how it is portrayed in movies. We imagine disasters and envision screaming and running. But in reality, the article said that people caught off-guard in emergencies are often quiet; still; observing; taking it in in disbelief. The article urged readers to be survivors, and that survivors have almost always been people who stopped watching and starting doing something immediately. And that it takes an effort of will, like stepping out of waist-high glue, to make yourself get moving and looking for survival options.

After telling my son’s friend about our dog’s experience and showing him photos after we rescued her from it (a total miracle that I still can’t get over), I had them watch Bear Grylls’ instructional video on what to do if you fall through ice. You should watch it too:

So be careful out there with your kids and animals as the temperatures rise and solids turn back to liquids. Be smart because everything is okay until the split second that it isn’t.