Recovery efforts continue after last weekend's harsh weather conditions in Lake Tahoe left several boats damaged or underwater. Luckily, crews are saying they have already recovered most of the damaged boats so far.
Owner of Lake Tahoe Diving and Environmental, Kris Kierce, says they spent over 10 hours yesterday pulling boats out of the water, starting with the mess at Camp Richardson.
"There was a big pileup right at the head of the dock, and we just started plucking them one at a time, starting with a fishing boat, worked our way in, and it was a jumbled mess, but we got seven of them out by noon," he says.
Kierce says they also continued efforts at Timber Cove Marina.
Lots of people, including Kierce, are saying they have never seen anything like this on the lake before.
Steve Simler, a San Jose resident, says, "I'm 70 years old, and I've been coming here since the third grade for snow skiing and everything, and that was the windiest I've seen it on the lake."
Kierce says sometimes he'll rescue boats from heavy winds near Incline Village, but because this type of weather doesn't happen often on the south shore, a lot of people were not prepared.
Kierce says, "So a lot of the chains were good; it was just their lines in general that were tied to the buoy that broke. Or some people were scared and drove their boat on the beach and said, Heck with it, I'm done."
While he is continuing his rescue efforts, Kierce says he has to postpone his plans to recover a boat near Hidden Beach due to winds and large waves today.
"It's about 30 feet deep, just sitting on the bottom. So, I'll have to go down, set an anchor on top, dive down with all my rigging and crane, tie it up, and just lift it off the bottom as far as I can. That's why I need it to be nice and calm out because if you got waves, that can put a lot of pressure and shock load on my crane."
Depending on the weather conditions, Kierce says he'll be back out Tuesday to recover that boat, along with any others still waiting for their rescue.
