ASHTABULA, Ohio — Last December, the Coast Guard announced it was closing its Ashtabula station and downsizing its station in Fairport Harbor because of understaffing. On Wednesday in Ashtabula, local leaders said that ending staffing there this summer did not end the calls for help they would have answered.
"On July 6th of this year we had four boating incidents between Conneaut and Sheffield which required the dispatch of air crews out of Detroit," said Gunar Luhta of the Ashtabula Port Authority.
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Luhta continued, "Numerous people in the water, boats capsized due to a weather event. Unfortunately one life was lost, one is still missing. The Coast Guard of Ashtabula was not manned at the time so we had to have Lake County Fire Department, Ashtabula Fire Department, a lot of different departments respond to these incidents."
That weekend, more than a dozen people were rescued from Lake Erie.
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As a result, some seasonal staffing was returned at busy times to the Ashtabula Coast Guard Station, but in their absence, the local first responders who had to step up did so with far less training in water rescues than their Coast Guard counterparts. In addition, they often had to call for mutual aid.
"So it's a domino effect all the way down the line when we're providing a service that has been taken away from us it affects not only the city but all of our surrounding mutual aid partners in this fight," said Ashtabula City Manager Jim Timonere.
When the Coast Guard had to be called in from the nearest station of Cleveland or Erie, it often takes time those in distress don't have.
"Sometimes they've been there within a half hour, but if the lake is in a really bad way, they're not coming from Fairport or Cleveland or Erie if you have ten-foot waves out there, so for us, it's kind of that crap shoot, too. Is the lake going to be in a condition where they can get here? Sure, they can fly that helicopter out of Detroit, and that'll get here in 45 minutes, but you still need that water rescue on the lake," Timonere said.
Several of those local leaders took their concerns to Sen. Sherrod Brown. Having fought scalebacks at the Ashtabula Station in the past, they fear this closing could be permanent.
"I think if they can get away with it, if they don't see community push back like this and push back from House and Senate members, direct loud push back that is could be permanent," said Senator Brown. "We just have to make sure it isn't."
After the cuts here and across the country were announced, Congress stepped up with funding for recruitment and retention, which the Coast Guard tells News 5 has paid off as the Coast Guard has, for the first time since 2017, met its recruiting goal for its active-duty enlisted workforce.
"Also, I think for the first time since 2007, we've met our goals for both offices, reserves and enlisted active duty recruiting goals in the same year," said Lorne Thomas, U.S. Coast Guard external affairs chief based out of Cleveland. "So we're in a good place this year and we're hoping this trend continues."
But he points out that the recruiting hole the Coast Guard and other services found themselves in didn't happen overnight and won't be filled overnight either.
"So hopefully this trend continues but we expect it to be, you know, a few years till we're back up to where we need to be to possibly fully staff all our Coast Guard stations at the level they need to be," he said.
In the meantime, local Congressman Dave Joyce and Sen. Brown promise to continue to apply bipartisan pressure to have the station return to permanent staffing as soon as possible.
"The case for 24/7 is air tight. People die on the lake, the economic prosperity of Ashtabula," said Brown. "And this is a northern border to Canada and we know that securing our border, whichever border, is really important."
In a statement to News 5, Joyce said, “Over the last year, my team and I have worked directly with the local community and the Coast Guard to address these staffing and public safety concerns. In order to return to permanent staffing at this station, we must also address the root causes of this operational change, which includes workforce and recruitment shortages across the entire Coast Guard.
“I will continue working diligently to facilitate coordination between all public safety agencies, resume operations in the short term, and ensure the station remains open for years to come. I look forward to a response from the Coast Guard as quickly as possible.”
