15 Ways People Die At The Lake Of The Ozarks (Half Of Missouri's Boat Deaths Happen Here)
Dangerous Geography
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The Lake of the Ozarks is not a lake the way a lake in a postcard is a lake. It is a river valley that was flooded in 1931, and the bottom of it is still a canyon. Ninety-two miles of main channel. About 1,150 miles of shoreline. Two public beaches on all of it. And, by the Highway Patrol's own numbers, roughly half of every boating injury and death in the state of Missouri.
This is fifteen ways this lake kills people, counted down, with the sources for every figure.
Some of it is what you would expect: no speed limit in daylight, a rock bluff at one in the morning, a cooler that is standard equipment on a boat in a way it is not in a car. Some of it is not: the town that was pulled down and flooded in 1931 and is still under there, the carbon monoxide that comes out of your own boat under the swim platform, the E. coli results the state held back until after Memorial Day weekend, and the three thousand boats that tie together in one cove every summer with nobody driving any of them.
And then there is number three, which is the reason this video exists. On the fourth of July, 2012, two children died in the water beside their family's dock. They were not pulled under and nothing bit them. The dock was leaking electricity into the water. In 2015 the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the company that owns the lake owed their family nothing, because you do not pay to swim here, and Missouri law protects a landowner who lets people use their land for free.
If you live at the lake or work on it, tell me in the comments what everybody local knows and nobody puts on a sign. The last several videos on this channel were built out of what people told me down there.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Two children died beside their own dock
00:30 Intro
01:45 15. It is not a lake, it is a flooded canyon
02:49 14. 1,150 miles of shore, two public beaches
03:45 13. Half of Missouri boat crashes happen here
05:23 12. In daylight there is no speed limit
06:20 11. The bluffs you cannot see at night
07:43 10. Drinking on a boat
08:34 9. The town that is still down there
09:23 8. Carbon monoxide off your own swim platform
10:24 Why this lake, and not the others
10:57 7. When the dam opens, the river comes up
11:53 6. The E. coli results the state sat on
13:20 5. Party Cove: 3,000 boats, nobody driving
14:43 4. The water patrol that was merged away
15:51 3. Electric shock drowning: water that kills quietly
17:50 2. The lake is private property
18:43 1. The ruling: nobody owed them anything
20:34 That is fifteen
21:03 Credits and what to watch next
SOURCES
Missouri State Highway Patrol (boating and drowning statistics; crash reports) · Missouri Revised Statutes 306.125 and the Missouri boater safety course (speed and no-wake rules) · Ameren Missouri and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission licence for Bagnell Dam · National Park Service and Missouri Department of Natural Resources · Missouri Supreme Court, Union Electric ruling, 2015 · Missourinet, St. Louis Public Radio, Columbia Missourian, KCUR, KOMU, KY3, KSHB, Lake Expo (contemporary reporting) · Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (carbon monoxide on boats) · Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica for basic geography.
HOW THIS VIDEO WAS MADE
Written and narrated for this channel. Every figure comes from one of the sources above; where sources disagree, the video says so or uses the lower number. Photographs are public domain or licensed images, including the 1973 DOCUMERICA survey of the Lake of the Ozarks held by the U.S. National Archives; faded slides have been colour corrected, not altered. Locator maps are National Park Service public domain base maps with every location plotted from real coordinates. The thumbnail is an illustration. Landscape footage is licensed stock.
Nothing in this video is safety advice for your own dock. If you own one, ask a licensed electrician about ground fault protection.
🔔 SUBSCRIBE NOW: https://bit.ly/4eRjCDK
#DangerousGeography #LakeOfTheOzarks #Missouri #Ozarks
#DangerousPlaces #HiddenAmerica #USGeography #BoatingSafety
#Maps
1 Comments
15 Ways People Die At The Lake Of The Ozarks (Half Of Missouri's Boat Deaths Happen Here)
Dangerous Geography
75 views
The Lake of the Ozarks is not a lake the way a lake in a postcard is a lake. It is a river valley that was flooded in 1931, and the bottom of it is still a canyon. Ninety-two miles of main channel. About 1,150 miles of shoreline. Two public beaches on all of it. And, by the Highway Patrol's own numbers, roughly half of every boating injury and death in the state of Missouri.
This is fifteen ways this lake kills people, counted down, with the sources for every figure.
Some of it is what you would expect: no speed limit in daylight, a rock bluff at one in the morning, a cooler that is standard equipment on a boat in a way it is not in a car. Some of it is not: the town that was pulled down and flooded in 1931 and is still under there, the carbon monoxide that comes out of your own boat under the swim platform, the E. coli results the state held back until after Memorial Day weekend, and the three thousand boats that tie together in one cove every summer with nobody driving any of them.
And then there is number three, which is the reason this video exists. On the fourth of July, 2012, two children died in the water beside their family's dock. They were not pulled under and nothing bit them. The dock was leaking electricity into the water. In 2015 the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the company that owns the lake owed their family nothing, because you do not pay to swim here, and Missouri law protects a landowner who lets people use their land for free.
If you live at the lake or work on it, tell me in the comments what everybody local knows and nobody puts on a sign. The last several videos on this channel were built out of what people told me down there.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Two children died beside their own dock
00:30 Intro
01:45 15. It is not a lake, it is a flooded canyon
02:49 14. 1,150 miles of shore, two public beaches
03:45 13. Half of Missouri boat crashes happen here
05:23 12. In daylight there is no speed limit
06:20 11. The bluffs you cannot see at night
07:43 10. Drinking on a boat
08:34 9. The town that is still down there
09:23 8. Carbon monoxide off your own swim platform
10:24 Why this lake, and not the others
10:57 7. When the dam opens, the river comes up
11:53 6. The E. coli results the state sat on
13:20 5. Party Cove: 3,000 boats, nobody driving
14:43 4. The water patrol that was merged away
15:51 3. Electric shock drowning: water that kills quietly
17:50 2. The lake is private property
18:43 1. The ruling: nobody owed them anything
20:34 That is fifteen
21:03 Credits and what to watch next
SOURCES
Missouri State Highway Patrol (boating and drowning statistics; crash reports) · Missouri Revised Statutes 306.125 and the Missouri boater safety course (speed and no-wake rules) · Ameren Missouri and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission licence for Bagnell Dam · National Park Service and Missouri Department of Natural Resources · Missouri Supreme Court, Union Electric ruling, 2015 · Missourinet, St. Louis Public Radio, Columbia Missourian, KCUR, KOMU, KY3, KSHB, Lake Expo (contemporary reporting) · Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (carbon monoxide on boats) · Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica for basic geography.
HOW THIS VIDEO WAS MADE
Written and narrated for this channel. Every figure comes from one of the sources above; where sources disagree, the video says so or uses the lower number. Photographs are public domain or licensed images, including the 1973 DOCUMERICA survey of the Lake of the Ozarks held by the U.S. National Archives; faded slides have been colour corrected, not altered. Locator maps are National Park Service public domain base maps with every location plotted from real coordinates. The thumbnail is an illustration. Landscape footage is licensed stock.
Nothing in this video is safety advice for your own dock. If you own one, ask a licensed electrician about ground fault protection.
🔔 SUBSCRIBE NOW: https://bit.ly/4eRjCDK
#DangerousGeography #LakeOfTheOzarks #Missouri #Ozarks
#DangerousPlaces #HiddenAmerica #USGeography #BoatingSafety
#Maps
Electric shock drowning does not look like anything. There is no spark, no noise, no warning. A dock with bad wiring pushes current into the water, the current locks up your muscles, and from ten feet away it looks like someone who suddenly stopped swimming. The people who jump in to help get caught in the same field. That is why these cases so often involve more than one victim.
Two things that cost nothing:
1. If it happens in front of you, do not go in. Kill the power at the breaker on shore and throw something that floats.
2. If you own a dock, a ground fault device for the dock circuit costs a few hundred dollars. Nobody inspects your dock. Nobody is going to make you do it.
If you live at the lake, or work on it, or pulled somebody out of it once, put it in the comments. The last few videos on this channel came out of what people told me down there.