Amarillo, TX
One fatality and several other people stranded for several hours at the Canadian River have Potter County officials concerned for the public.
"We're seeing water like we've never seen down there, or at least in several years and everyone's intrigued by that," said Potter County Sheriff, Brian Thomas.
Rising and dangerous water levels at the Canadian River have forced the Potter County Sheriff's Department to encourage people to stay away.
"That water is moving extremely fast, it may not look like it on top, but the undercurrent is what's pulling that thing," said Thomas.
Sheriff Thomas says his department continues to receive calls for help along the river. This weekend, two separate calls came in for canoers who were stranded.
"There are places there that are deep, there are places with quicksand and it's just a dangerous situation," said Captain John Coffee with the Potter County Sheriff's Department.
Captain Coffee says one call from over the weekend kept the deputies searching until Monday afternoon.
"These individuals were dehydrated, hungry and they were in pretty poor shape when we got to them," said Coffee.
Although they were able to get stranded canoers to dry land this weekend, the department is worried about more calls for help because they don't have the equipment to navigate through the dangerous areas.
"We did buy an amphibious vehicle, but that has been taken out of service for a little bit over the last incident out there, it got damaged," said Thomas.
So, the deputies have been using their four wheelers which they say is hard to get around in the mud and quicksand. The department has had to call on other expensive resources, like using Life Star and DPS's helicopter from Lubbock.
"There's an expense for the state to get the helicopter to come find them. An expense to the county tax payers for us to go down there and look for them, and then we have the liability that we may lose a piece of equipment," said Coffee.
But all deputies agree with one piece of advise to keep themselves and the public safe.
"We encourage people to stay away from there," said Coffee.
The Canadian River is public property, so deputies can only suggest people to stay away, not prevent it. If the number of people stranded continues to rise, however, Sheriff Thomas says that could change.