Two drownings in Trinity River raise summer water safety warning

Two people drowned in the Trinity River days apart, including a July 22 possible drowning call at Kimtu Beach in Willow Creek that sent Humboldt County Sheriff's Office deputies and emergency medical personnel to the riverbank. The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office said the incidents happened within a couple of days of each other and used the update to warn residents and visitors to use caution in and around local waterways.

At about 4:17 p.m. July 22, the sheriff's office Emergency Communications Center received a 9-1-1 call reporting the possible drowning at Kimtu Beach. That stretch of river draws swimmers, floaters and families in warm weather, but the county warning made clear that a calm surface can hide fast current, underwater obstacles and colder or deeper water than people expect.

Humboldt County's Trinity River background page puts that hazard in a wider frame. In 1959, the county and the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation entered into a contract for annual water releases of not less than 50,000 acre-feet from Trinity Reservoir into the Trinity River, and the county says the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project diverts nearly half the stored water in Trinity Reservoir. The river is part of a managed system with moving water, shifting conditions and seasonal risk, not a fixed swimming hole.

The Trinity River deaths also fit a pattern local officials know well. In July 2025, the sheriff's office and Yurok Tribal Police responded to a possible drowning in the Klamath River near Blue Creek involving 45-year-old Shawn Nomura, whose body was recovered three days later. Humboldt County also opened a Trinity River drowning investigation in July 2021 after a July 23 incident that killed an Arcata woman. Those cases, along with the latest deaths, show how quickly a day on the river can turn deadly.

Sheriff's office warnings around local waterways have remained consistent: wear a life jacket, avoid alcohol near water and do not assume a river is safe because others are nearby. In Humboldt County, where rivers and beaches are part of summer routine, the fatal margin can be the few feet between a bank and a current that looks harmless until it pulls.