Residents Offer Ideas for L.A. River Rescues : Emergencies: Would-be saviors attend the first public meeting of a city task force, which was set up after a boy drowned during the storms in February.

Spurred by memories of Adam Paul Bischoff’s futile struggle against the Los Angeles River, would-be saviors gathered in Sherman Oaks on Wednesday to offer a city task force ideas for rescuing people from rain-filled storm channels.

About 14 people presented plans--including permanent or emergency nets that could snag victims from rushing currents and steel frameworks like playground “monkey bars” that swimmers could grab--at the first public meeting of the Los Angeles River Rescue Task Force.

“I know this subject has evoked very strong emotions among people,” said Los Angeles Councilwoman Joy Picus, addressing an audience of about 50. “In February, Southern California experienced a series of major storms the likes of which we’ve rarely seen before . . . and a very tragic event, Adam Bischoff’s being swept downriver despite valiant attempts to save him.

“I was astonished after the creation of the task force at the number of letters I received from people who had ideas on how you’d set up a method of rescue on that river.”

The five-member task force was set up by the Los Angeles City Council in the wake of Adam’s televised drowning, which prompted calls for better ways of dealing with such emergencies. Represented on the task force are the Los Angeles Fire Department, Police Department and Bureau of Engineering, the County Flood Control District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which built and runs much of the flood control system.

The aim of the task force is to develop a system that is relatively inexpensive, will withstand long exposure to the elements and can be easily understood by a victim trapped in the river’s current. In addition, the task force plans to develop education programs to keep children out of the river.

“The purpose of this meeting is to assure that we obtain public comment from as broad a base of people as we can,” said Tony Ennis, chairman of the task force and assistant chief of the city Fire Department. “We have been receiving letters from citizens ever since Adam Bischoff’s drowning.”

Adam, 15, of Woodland Hills was swept nearly 10 miles downriver, from Woodland Hills to Encino, during a heavy rainstorm on Feb. 12 as would-be rescuers raced from bridge to bridge, throwing him flotation devices and lowering ropes, many of which he could not reach. But unable to hold on to the rescue equipment that he did grab, Adam disappeared beneath the roiling waters. His body was discovered the next morning.

“One of the things we’re concerned about is that we can tell by the tenor of the letters that there’s a very high level of anxiety that the general public experienced from Adam Bischoff’s drowning,” Ennis said. “We certainly want to allow people a forum to express anxiety. They also have a chance to explain what they think should be done.”

The task force invited 30 people who sent them specific suggestions on how to retrieve victims from the river. The letters included diagrams, sketches and even a photograph of a river in Germany where each bridge abutment contains a closet for flotation devices that can be thrown to people who fall into the water.

The ideas presented Wednesday were just as interesting.

Larry Nixon of Woodland Hills, an electronic engineer, sketched a diagram of a rigid chain-link net that could be suspended across the channel. Victims would be forced onto the net no matter how weak they were, Nixon said, and the device would be cheap to install.

Mike Richter of North Hollywood brought an example of a net he designed, which he said could be carried in suitcases by emergency personnel and strung across the river when needed.

Paul Herzig of Colton suggested installing concrete or steel islands in the river with toeholds that victims could climb on. He also suggested ladder-like structures similar to “the monkey bars you see on school grounds.”

Suggestions from the public meeting will be reviewed by engineers working with the task force, which plans to report back to the City Council at the end of May with two or three of the most viable options, Ennis said. The task force then will ask the council for funds to build prototypes and test the ideas, Ennis said.

The task force is coordinating its efforts with the Swiftwater Rescue Committee, a similar group set up by the county Board of Supervisors.

Supervisors already have approved one of the rescue committee’s plans for responding to such emergencies, which includes standardizing training and equipment for swift-water rescues among the county’s lifeguards, Public Works Department and, fire and sheriff’s departments, said Fire Capt. Bill Masten.

The committee will present the board with another plan to educate the county’s schoolchildren about the dangers of the flood channel system in a couple of weeks.

The city Fire Department also will present to the fire chief three suggestions for improving reactions to swift-water emergencies, Ennis said.

The suggestions include changing methods of dispatching personnel to such emergencies, training all firefighters in such rescues and creating four teams which would specialize in such rescues and be on standby in the event of heavy rains, he said.

Emergency officials across the county have been busy this year rescuing people caught in the flood control channels.

On March 26, a 20-year-old Northridge man was pulled from Bull Creek just south of Roscoe Boulevard in Van Nuys. The man slipped into the creek as he rode his bicycle over a chunk of wood, starting a 2.5-mile odyssey that ended after an off-duty police officer saw him and called directly to alert the Fire Department’s Air Operations Unit at Van Nuys Airport. The man required no hospitalization.

In early April, two Pasadena teen-agers fell into the Rubio Wash flood channel and were swept downstream before dozens of emergency workers performed a harrowing rescue in the Rio Hondo near Rosemead.

And on April 18, 18-year-old Gail Ortega of Fontana died a week after being swept four miles along the swift waters of the San Gabriel River north of Glendora. Her death was the first attributed to streams swollen by rain and runoff since Adam Bischoff’s drowning.

BACKGROUND

In a typical year, six people drown in the flood control channels that stretch for 470 miles throughout Los Angeles County, according to Bill Masten, a county fire captain who is chairman of the county’s Swiftwater Rescue Committee. The victims must fight rapidly flowing water confined by slick, steep concrete walls, lacking the gently sloping banks or objects to grasp that help those who fall into natural rivers. To prevent flooding, the system is designed to channel rainwater runoff from the mountains through the urban area as quickly as possible, emptying most of it into Santa Monica Bay and San Pedro Bay, said Michael Anderson, head of drainage planning for the county Department of Public Works. Currents range from 9 m.p.h. to 45 m.p.h., Anderson said. The channels are from four to 600 feet wide and up to 30 feet deep.