Lake Erie

Researchers have counted more than 14,000 birds killed by avian botulism along Lake Erie this year, possibly the deadliest outbreak since the disease was discovered here four years ago. Wildlife officials said the toll in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Ontario, Canada, is probably much higher, because agencies are collecting only a fraction of birds that die.

There was once a team from Portland called the Trail Blazers that was so beloved, their fans gave their adoration a name -- "Blazermania" -- and called themselves "Blazer Nation." This was so cutting edge in the 1970s, it led the way for other villages to proclaim "Fernandomania," and "Red Sox Nation." So, it wasn't just sad, but crushing, when the Blazermaniacs saw their team take an oft-injured 7-footer named Sam Bowie in the storied 1984 draft who went right on getting hurt, instead of a guard named Michael Jordan, who became the game's greatest player.

The high temperatures and low water levels in Lake Erie have brought two nuclear plants close to having to shut down their reactors. The northern Ohio plants rely on Lake Erie's chilly water to cool down the facilities. But the lake has been warm this summer and came close to the 85-degree limit that requires the plants to stop generating electricity. FirstEnergy Corp.

A woman in Ohio is telling a fish story about one that got away -- from a bird, and damaged her car. Authorities in northwest Ohio say the fish -- a Lake Erie freshwater drum, known as a sheepshead -- smashed a car windshield Tuesday when an eagle dropped its catch from a height of about 40 feet. Leighann Niles said the impact felt like a brick hitting her Toyota's windshield. The woman from the Cleveland suburb of South Euclid was vacationing along the lake in Marblehead.

Jerry Mathers once pulled in 150,000 pounds of whitefish a year from Lake Erie. This year, all he got was one whitefish, some perch and a pat on the back from environmentalists. Mathers' boat, the Big Tony, is the only commercial vessel still in business around Erie, since state fishing restrictions in 1995 wiped out an already struggling industry.

For most of the past 30 years, Cleveland Stadium has held echoes of past glory rather than cheers for ongoing success. The stadium, which opened in 1933 and became the Indians' permanent home in 1947, seats 74,208. The 1948 World Series-winning campaign drew a club record 2,620,627 fans, highlighting 10 straight years of 1 million-plus attendance from 1946-55. But the turnstiles grew silent and eventually rusty after 1,497,976 passed through in 1959.

Nearly 20 years after the Cuyahoga River last caught fire, officials say Lake Erie and its tributaries are cleaner than they have been in decades. Scores of Lake Erie beaches will be open in Ohio this year, and more than 25 million walleye thrive in Erie's waters. Boating has become so popular that many marinas in the Toledo area are running out of dock space. A few decades ago, Lake Erie had only three clean beaches, and fish were dying at a rapid rate.

Across huge swaths of blizzard-stricken America this winter, a journey out the door, down the steps and across the street has often been perilous at best and impossible at worst. Salvation lies beneath Lake Erie. Although it is now the nation's fourth-largest freshwater body, the lake was an ocean 425 million years ago. And where there once was sea, there is salt. The deposit is not pure enough for seasoning food, but when it comes to melting snow and ice, this stuff does the job.

Does Nessie, Scotland's fabled Loch Ness monster, have a cousin? A handful of sightings of huge serpentlike creatures in Lake Erie were recorded in 1985 and 1987. But things remained quiet until Sept. 4. That's when Harold Bricker and his family returned from a fishing trip with a new sighting, and monster mania began spreading along lakefront communities. The Brickers said they saw a large creature moving in the water about 1,000 feet from their boat.

When they scuttled the 268-foot steamer Canobie in Lake Erie 80 years ago, everyone assumed that its useful life was over. They were wrong. The Canobie and four other shipwrecks, in a 20-square-mile area, are the focus of a program by Mercyhurst College's Archaeological Institute and Erie's Bayfront Center for Maritime Studies to map and record the wrecks.

Many of the 134 fishermen rescued from a Lake Erie ice floe returned Sunday using rented air boats to retrieve left-behind snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and other equipment. A few ventured onto the risky ice to fish for walleye. About 300 fishermen were stationed on stable ice not far from where the crack had opened Saturday, stranding the anglers about 1,000 yards from the Ohio shoreline.

Hampered by snow and low clouds, U.S. and Canadian crews called off rescue efforts Sunday for 10 people believed killed when a plane operated by a small regional airline crashed into icy Lake Erie shortly after taking off from a Canadian island. Canadian authorities said Sunday that nine people aboard the flight were Canadian and one person was from Los Angeles.

A single-engine plane carrying at least nine people crashed Saturday in snowy weather shortly after taking off from an island in Lake Erie, the U.S. Coast Guard said. There was no immediate word on whether anyone survived. The pilot radioed a frantic call for help shortly after taking off about 5 p.m., but controllers lost contact with the plane, Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Christopher Pasciuto said. A helicopter found the wreckage about 7:30 p.m.

When they scuttled the 268-foot steamer Canobie in Lake Erie 80 years ago, everyone assumed that its useful life was over. They were wrong. The Canobie and four other shipwrecks, in a 20-square-mile area, are the focus of a program by Mercyhurst College's Archaeological Institute and Erie's Bayfront Center for Maritime Studies to map and record the wrecks.

Researchers have counted more than 14,000 birds killed by avian botulism along Lake Erie this year, possibly the deadliest outbreak since the disease was discovered here four years ago. Wildlife officials said the toll in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Ontario, Canada, is probably much higher, because agencies are collecting only a fraction of birds that die.

A single-engine plane carrying at least nine people crashed Saturday in snowy weather shortly after taking off from an island in Lake Erie, the U.S. Coast Guard said. There was no immediate word on whether anyone survived. The pilot radioed a frantic call for help shortly after taking off about 5 p.m., but controllers lost contact with the plane, Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Christopher Pasciuto said. A helicopter found the wreckage about 7:30 p.m.

Bright streaks of light cut through Lake Erie's shallow waters and illuminate a hulking skeleton. Divers float past the green moss and zebra mussel shells that cover the anchor lift and wooden hull of the F.H. Prince, a propeller-driven steamer that caught fire in 1911 just off the coast of Kelleys Island. "To know that there were actually people on that ship just gives me a feeling of connection to that period in time," said Cheryl Hubans, who is making her second dive in the lake.

Bright streaks of light cut through Lake Erie's shallow waters and illuminate a hulking skeleton. Divers float past the green moss and zebra mussel shells that cover the anchor lift and wooden hull of the F.H. Prince, a propeller-driven steamer that caught fire in 1911 just off the coast of Kelleys Island. "To know that there were actually people on that ship just gives me a feeling of connection to that period in time," said Cheryl Hubans, who is making her second dive in the lake.

The high temperatures and low water levels in Lake Erie have brought two nuclear plants close to having to shut down their reactors. The northern Ohio plants rely on Lake Erie's chilly water to cool down the facilities. But the lake has been warm this summer and came close to the 85-degree limit that requires the plants to stop generating electricity. FirstEnergy Corp.