When tow trucks came out the next morning, it was too late.
Georgia State Police will add another Ford Interceptor SUV to their budget after yesterday’s (Apr. 11,2020) mishap. According to WSB-TV and Georgia resident Kevin Drury, a GSP Interceptor, Ford Excursion, and an entire backhoe all were swallowed up by a rising tide, none presumably knew how to properly get their vehicles out of soft sand without professional help.
Check out Kevin’s post below.
First, notice that WSB’s report does not mention why police got stuck out in the middle of a beach while Kevin’s post does. I think they were too embarrassed to add that to their official story.
Like most states, Georgia has a “Shelter in Place” order in effect. That means no non-essential activities and certainly no fishing outside on a Saturday afternoon. As per Kevin’s post, a group of men were just enjoying their weekend, out for a few fish. Sure, they’re not supposed to gather, but what are you going to do at that point.
To get closer to these rouge anglers, police drove out to their fishing spot. Unbeknownst to them, sand they thought was hard enough to drive on was, in fact, not hard at all.
According to GSP,
“He thought he was still on firm sand, but it was just a thin layer,” Davis said. “He stopped when he saw the mud up ahead. He backed up to turn around and when he did, the tires lost traction. Of course, then high tide came in and consumed the vehicle.”
A good samaritan in a Ford Excursion rolled up onto the scene, to help the Interceptor out of the sand but that much heavier SUV got stuck, too.
Then, when a backhoe was called in, which I assume freed the Excursion, the backhoe got stuck in the Excursion’s place.
I don’t know why it took local towing all night and most of the morning to finally get out there but perhaps, at that point, GSP already knew it was too late.
With water rushing into the engine, flooding the interior, and wreaking havoc on electronics, it was a writeoff within hours.
It must’ve been a gut wrenching sight to see your patrol SUV get pummeled and destroyed by salty sea water and there’s nothing you could do about it.
As for those fishermen, all they got was a slightly shorter fishing excursion (Ford pun intended.)
If you’re patrolling these East coast beaches daily it would behoove GA. State Police to either get a specialized vehicle up to the task like a Jeep Wrangler with big aired out tires, or maybe they should all brush up on “how to get out a stuck vehicle in loose sand.”
Getting stuck on a beach is an expensive mistake when it goes south and it’s something no one wants to happen to them on the clock.
