It has been a slow year for the Lathrop-Manteca Fire District search and rescue dive team.

And that’s a good thing.

With the California drought depleting reservoirs across Northern California and reducing river flows in some areas to a trickle, local water emergency response crews – including the Lathrop-Manteca Fire District and the Ripon Consolidated Fire District – haven’t had much to respond to.

In the case of Lathrop – which employs divers that respond to incidents in parts throughout the county – that means nobody has drowned so far this year.

“Luckily it’s has been a pretty slow year as far as the dive rescue,” Lathrop-Manteca Fire Chief Gene Neely said. “We train just like we would every other year so that we’re prepared to respond, however it’s a good thing when we’re not out there on an emergency scene.

“Nobody has drowned on this stretch of river this year and we haven’t gotten called out anywhere and I think might have something to do with the prevention steps people are taking. There have been some tragic drownings that have happened and people are trying to do their best to prevent it. We haven’t had to dive for anybody with a life vest on.”

According to Neely, the decline in water level has exposed portions of the river that haven’t recently been exposed and the changing currents create an ever-changing bottom that can be hazardous for boaters that aren’t careful. Sandbars can emerge out of nowhere, he said, and wearing a life vest is the easiest way to prevent tragedy from striking a casual day out on the river.

Things have also been slow inside of the Ripon city limits for Ripon Consolidated Fire District crews that typically make routine trips out to the Stanislaus River for lost rafters and people that get in trouble by underestimating the current or the terrain.

So far this year, according to Fire Chief Dennis Bitters, most of the calls that they’ve responded to on the river have been for rafters that are overdue or haven’t reached the pullout spot that was originally arranged in time – something he attributes to the low water and the fact that people have to walk in sections that they could previously float down.

At this point his crews can no longer use their jet-powered boat because the water is so low – they are designed to run in shallow water – and searches are now conducted using kayaks. Because of the danger involved with kayaking at night, firefighters will no longer go out once the sun sets.

“We’ve been getting calls for missing rafters further up the river in Escalon or at Jacob Meyers Park,” Bitters said. “But the drought has affected the number of legitimate calls. We haven’t had any drownings – the water level is too low at Caswell and that’s normally where we see them – but people shouldn’t underestimate the river and what it can do.

“There are some holes where you’ll be walking along and it will just drop down into a deep section and you can become overtaken by the current. And we see so many people out there that aren’t wearing any lifejackets at all – if it’s an adult we can’t force them to put them on, but we see kids as young as three that are out there without lifejackets and they can’t swim well if they get into a situation.”

In order to cut down on the amount of calls that the district gets for overdue rafters – which often take a massive amount of resources including helicopters and crews that have to go out on the water on kayaks – Bitters recommends that people keep a cell phone in a waterproof bag and to pay attention to the time and their location and to keep people apprised of their situation.

The only real increase in emergency calls for medical help on the Stanislaus River have been at Knights Ferry where people have sustained serious injuries from diving into the river despite warning signs. While the Army Corps of Engineers frowns on eh practice, the drought has made it especially dangerous due to low water.