BOONE COUNTY, Ky. — As temperatures drop and ice begins to appear on ponds, rescue teams want residents to just stay away from the water.
"It's never safe to go out," Danielle Gronefield, public information officer for the Boone County Water Rescue Team, told me.
Even as temperatures sit near zero degrees — and in the negative degrees with wind chill — Gronefield said it won't stay cold long enough to fully, safely freeze bodies of water like ponds in the Greater Cincinnati area.
She also said the snow cover might make conditions worse.
"Snow can create an insulation over the ice, so when you think you have these cold temperatures, that ice may not be forming as rapidly as one might think," she said. "It also covers up any weak spots within the pond as well and also it adds weight to that ice."
Watch below to see how water rescue teams train:
Gronefeld said snow can cause certain spots on the water's surface to be slushy and not frozen solid like it appears. She added that area parks are also somewhat unsafe right now, if you're not familiar with where you're walking.
“If you’re going to parks or unfamiliar areas right now, what we recommend is to look that area up on a map," Gronefeld said. "Sometimes it’s hard, especially with snow cover, to see where ponds or small bodies of water are. You could easily walk out onto an area that’s ice and not realize it, and accidentally fall in.”
Pets are another concern. Last year, a Florence police officer's body camera captured the rescue of a woman stuck in frigid water after she fell through ice on a pond while chasing her dog. She was in the water for 10 minutes before first responders rescued her.
“Fortunately she lived in an area where the neighbors were able to hear her screams,” Florence Police Capt. Greg Rehkamp told us in January 2025. “If you’re in a situation by yourself and you walk onto a pond, and you go through the ice like that and fall in the water, it’s gonna be very difficult to survive that situation.”
In December, a man and his two dogs drowned in a pond at the VOA MetroPark in West Chester.
Gronefield told me pet owners should be sure to keep dogs on leashes to prevent them from chasing birds or ducks onto frozen ponds. If a pet does fall into the water, Gronefield said owners should call 911 for help and never attempt a rescue themselves.
Recreational activities that involve going onto frozen ponds — like ice fishing or skating — will likely be dangerous to attempt; Gronefield said while temperatures much further north may successfully freeze lakes and ponds, that's not the case in the Greater Cincinnati area.
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