Huck Finn wannabes 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
A little background:
The section of river is an industrial shipping corridor with steep levies or vertical piers for shoreline.
The river was swollen by record rainfall upstream and boaters were warned to use caution due to high water, swift currents and floting debris fron the upsteam floods.
The foam raft was a 2 inch sheet of brittle expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) "borrowed" from a construction site. It is routinely cut by scoring and breaking with a slight impact. News vidios showed chunks of foam cought in the wake vortex at the bow of the barge.
Posted on Mon, Jun. 30, 2003
ST. PAUL: Search for rafter difficult
BY ARON KAHN
Pioneer Press (shortened to remove local only interests)
Authorities have been searching the Mississippi for Anne Kirsten Nelson, 18, since Saturday night, when her makeshift raft crashed into a moored barge near downtown St. Paul, sending her and a friend into the river.
Her friend, Stephanie Sibet, born on the same day as Nelson, climbed out. Since that moment, the lives of Sibet and the Nelson family have been focused on the water, so engorged by recent rains that a hard search is harder now. There were no good words for the family on Sunday.
"She was a good swimmer, but I think the current was just too strong,'' Wallace Nelson, Anne's father, said Sunday night. "The Ramsey County water patrol wouldn't allow divers in because they say it's too dangerous.''
Having talked about a great adventure on the Mississippi, Anne Nelson, who grew up in St. Paul, and Sibet, of Brooklyn Park, fashioned a makeshift raft out of foam panels and set out on the river behind the Science Museum of Minnesota sometime after 6 p.m. Saturday.
"I understand the girls wanted to play Huck Finn,'' Nelson said.
"They tossed into the river, they started downstream and things got out of hand.''
Not far down the swollen river, their craft slammed into the barge and broke apart, leaving Nelson missing and presumed dead. Sibet avoided being sucked under the barge by clinging to a snag of tree branches, pulling herself ashore just downriver from the Lafayette Road bridge. Sodden and frantic, she flagged down a driver along Warner Road, who called 911 on his cell phone.
Ramsey and Hennepin county water patrol units were searching most intensely Sunday under the barges where Anne Nelson was lost. They used a special sonar device brought to the scene by the Hennepin patrol, said Mark Naylon, a Ramsey County sheriff's spokesman.
"For our divers, they can't see their hand in front of their face; it's very dangerous for them to go in to the river and begin searching," he said. Because of the swift and silty nature of river, it's uncommon to deploy divers unless they've isolated a very specific location to search, he said.
Annie Nelson adored the river, her father said.
"For graduation, she wanted a fishing pole. She loves fishing, and she loves the water,'' he said.
Submitted on 06/30/2003
Submitted by:
Reference:
St Paul, MN media (Pioneer Pre
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