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Aword to the wise, goes the old cliché, is sufficient.
But sometimes it's not.
Sometimes warnings of danger aren't enough.
Sometimes we need to take action to make our community safer.
Such might be the case with a low-head dam on the Yellow Breeches Creek near Messiah College where a 70-year-old man from Oklahoma drowned last week.
He was with a group attending a conference at the college and had gone out tubing on the creek - a popular way to cool off.
The group came upon a low-head dam, posted with a sign warning it was dangerous. One member of the group went ahead to check it out. Then the 70-year-old man went to assess the dam as well.
The group later found him floating face-down in the water.
Another tragic victim of these scenic killers.
We've long known about the dangers of these dams. When a boy drowned in York County some years ago, then state Rep. Todd Platts pushed through legislation requiring such dams to be posted with danger signs.
They look like sleepy little dams on quiet country creeks. Why are they so dangerous? Here's part of a story that ran in last Thursday's paper:
Low-head dams can be dangerous for swimmers, boaters and anyone else on the water, according to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
Anyone who gets too close to the dam can be drawn into the backwash current and pulled underwater, according to the commission's Web site. Victims are then pushed away from the
The dams are inspected periodically by the Fish and Boat Commission, which works with the state Department of Environmental Protection to remove dams that are deemed unsafe, according to the commission.
Note that last sentence.
The dam on the Yellow Breeches has killed a man.
That means - or at the very least suggests - it's "unsafe."
The state should seriously consider removing this dam.
