70°F
weather icon Mostly Clear

Five boats sank in Texas Trump parade, no injuries, sheriff says

AUSTIN, Texas — Five boats sank in a Texas lake during a nautical parade in support of President Donald Trump, but no one was injured or killed, officials said Sunday.

Boaters began calling for help “almost immediately” after the procession for Trump’s reelection got underway on a lake west of Austin on Saturday, according to Kristen Dark of the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies ultimately responded to 15 distress calls and received three other reports of boats taking on water.

Images of the event show the water of Lake Travis choppy with the wakes of dozens of boats flying American, Texas and “Trump 2020” flags.

Dark said that weather on the roughly 19,000-acre (7,690-hectare) lake was calm, but that the tightly packed boats created large waves in areas. Deputies have found no evidence of foul play, she said.

The first call for help came at 12:15 p.m., and later distress calls were for boats taking on water, stalled engines and capsizing, Dark said.

Three of the boats that sank were towed to shore, while the other two were still at the bottom of the lake, she said.

Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services received no calls for service related to the parade, a spokeswoman said.

THE LATEST
Waves of rocket fire from Lebanon hit Israel, killing 7

The violence came as top U.S. diplomats were in the region to push for cease-fires in Lebanon and Gaza, hoping to wind down the wars in the Middle East in the Biden administration’s final months.

Teen fights kidney failure after eating McDonald’s Quarter Pounders

A 15-year-old high school freshman is hospitalized with severe complications of food poisoning after eating McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers three times in the weeks before a deadly E. coli outbreak was detected.