No ice, is safe ice.
That's the message from Port Windsor Harbour Master Peter Berry.
He told AM800's Mornings with Mike and Meg, if you're heading out on the ice, make sure it's clear black ice and not white ice that you're currently seeing on the Detroit River.
He says residents need to be aware that the Detroit River ice is not safe ice.
"The best thing to keep in mind especially with the Detroit River, it's not safe ice," he says. "It's not something to go walk into along the slips even in some of the marinas where fishing occurs."
Berry says the ice has to be solid.
"What you're going to look for if you're going to walk out is four to six inches of clear black ice, needs to be that dark ice," says Berry. "So the white ice that we see in Detroit River, you want to double that so we're going to look at from 10 to 12 inches before that even close to good for a person to walk on. This time of year is great for the ice fishing, leisure sports that we do encourage but keeping in mind you got to have the thickness of the ice. The shoreline cannot be loose and living footprints behind, it has to be solid."
He says there are also ice breakers in the river on a regular basis, keeping commercial traffic moving.
Berry says the only local ice rescue the region has is the LaSalle Fire Department.
Provincial police in Essex County also sent out a warning Tuesday, urging the public to exercise extreme caution near any surfaces that may appear to be frozen.
The OPP says "although temperatures have been very cold, it may appear that there is a thick layer of ice beneath you, when in some instances, this is not the case."