Miami Beach Urges the U.S. Coast Guard to Assess the Safety of Government Cut

(Miami Beach, FL) Apr 24, 2019 -

The City of Miami Beach Commission is once again requesting the U.S. Coast Guard to conduct a focused safety waterway analysis and management system review of the Government Cut inlet, following the deaths of six people since 2016. In all fatalities the boats collided with the north rock jetty.

Last Sunday, April 22 a boating accident killed husband and wife Christopher and Elisaine Colgan, 28-year-old Jennifer Munoz Cadavid and seriously injured 37-year-old Troy Forte.

“Something must be done—six lives have been lost in less than three years in the same area,” said Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber.

In 2016, City Manager Jimmy Morales sent a letter requesting that the U.S. Coast Guard initiate a comprehensive safety review of the South Pointe jetty to improve its visibility and the channel’s safety. One month prior, on September 25, 2016, Miami Marlins pitcher José Fernández died in a boating accident at Government Cut. The open console boat hit the north jetty and capsized, killing Fernández and two other men on board, 25-year-old Eduardo Rivero, and 27-year-old Emilio Macias, the son of a Miami-Dade police detective.

The operation of Government Cut falls upon three government agencies: The U.S Coast Guard, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and The Port of Miami. In 2017, the U.S. Coast Guard conducted a Miami Main Channel Focused Waterway Analysis and Management System review and concluded that the current buoys and ranges marking the Miami Main Channel are sufficient and that adding additional aids to navigation for the jetties would not conform to navigation standards and could possibly confuse mariners due to existing lighted buoys.