Search to resume today for man missing after boat overturns on Milton

YOUNGSTOWN — Authorities said Hurricane Ike may have claimed the life of a boater on Lake Milton who is missing and presumed drowned.

Milton Township Fire Chief Rick Pellin Jr. said three men were in a pleasure boat late Sunday afternoon when high winds from the remnants of the hurricane hit the Mahoning Valley. It appeared they couldn’t get off the lake quickly enough, and their boat overturned near the Mahoning Avenue causeway in waves that were reaching 6 feet high, he said.

Pellin said his department got the call about 6:45 p.m.

None of the three was apparently wearing a life jacket, Pellin said, noting that a Lake Milton State Park Department of Natural Resources officer on duty was the first to reach the scene by boat and was able to pull two of the men from the water. They weren’t injured.

The third was missing. The identities of the three were not immediately released.

Pellin said Portage and Mahoning County dive teams were called in to help search for the missing boater, but the effort was called off at dusk as the high waves made it too risky for people in the search boats. Even those along the shoreline were in danger of being pulled in by the waves, he said, adding that the recovery effort would resume at 10 a.m. today.