{"id":98653,"date":"2026-07-07T03:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/98653\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T03:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:20:16","slug":"children-who-died-in-geneva-lake-storm-were-10-7-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/98653\/","title":{"rendered":"Children who died in Geneva Lake storm were 10, 7, 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

Authorities released new details Monday afternoon about the children who drowned when a boat capsized in a sudden storm on Geneva Lake.<\/p>\n

The children were among 10 people on the capsized boat that was driven \u201cby a 47-year-old male with extensive boating experience,\u201d according to the Geneva Lake Police Department. When the storm struck, the man looked for a place to shelter safely. When no safe refuge was available, he \u201crelied on his training and experience, turning the vessel directly into the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the waves, amid wind speeds of up to 100 mph, were too powerful, causing the boat to take on water and list to one side, police said. <\/p>\n

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\u201cThe vessel was then struck by an additional large wave to its side, causing it to roll, capsize, and send all 10 occupants into the water,\u201d police said.<\/p>\n

First responders rescued six adults and one child from the water. The three missing children, all of whom had been wearing life jackets, were found inside the sunken boat.<\/p>\n

Officials said preliminary investigation shows the children did not suffer external injuries and died by drowning. <\/p>\n

The survivors were a 75-year-old man; 73-year-old woman; 49-year-old woman; 46-year-old man; 44-year-old woman; and a 12-year-old boy. The children who died were a 10-year-old girl, a 7-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy.<\/p>\n

The boat\u2019s occupants were residents of Batavia, Illinois; Wheaton, Illinois; and Fontana, Wisconsin, police said. <\/p>\n

They did not release the names of those involved. The incident remains under investigation by both local and state agencies.<\/p>\n

Storm damage cleanup continues in Walworth County<\/p>\n

Many people in southern Wisconsin are still without power three days after the storm also caused extensive damage and downed power lines across its path.<\/p>\n

In a Facebook post, the National Weather Service Milwaukee\/Sullivan said<\/a> it conducted a storm survey for July 3. Researchers found the Walworth County storms had peak wind speeds between 90 and 100 miles per hour, based on the damage to local trees.<\/p>\n

\"AA serious and sudden storm ripped through southern Wisconsin on July 3, 2026, resulting in extensive damage, downed power lines and the deaths of three children. American Red Cross Wisconsin Region<\/p>\n

The Lake Geneva Fire Department<\/a> said they responded to dozens of calls of people being trapped under trees, stuck in cars, several structure fires, multiple downed lines and other electrical problems.<\/p>\n

The NWS issued a warning about the storm just before noon on Friday, after forecasts of wind gusts near 65 miles per hour around Geneva Lake, where the boat went down.<\/p>\n

The city of Lake Geneva began work again today to clean up the storm damage and says it could take several weeks. They\u2019ve had crews working all through the weekend to open roads and work on power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local fire officials are advising the public to dial 211 to report storm damage.<\/p>\n

Alliant Energy, which services the area, still had over 1,000 customers without power on Monday morning, three days after the storm.<\/p>\n

When the storm blew in, the Lake Geneva Fire Department had been asked to help at a grain bin rescue but had to decline because of the high number of calls from the storm.<\/p>\n

\"AA serious and sudden storm ripped through southern Wisconsin on July 3, 2026, resulting in extensive damage, downed power lines and the deaths of three children. American Red Cross Wisconsin Region<\/p>\n

The department is made of full-time and part-time firefighters, and services an area of roughly 50 square miles, according to its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With so many calls for service, the Lake Geneva Fire Department activated a disaster alarm which brought in dozens of departments from nine counties in Wisconsin and Illinois.<\/p>\n

\"AA serious and sudden storm ripped through southern Wisconsin on July 3, 2026, resulting in extensive damage, downed power lines and the deaths of three children. American Red Cross Wisconsin Region<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween 12:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., the department responded to 75 calls for service, including a dive rescue, two structure fires, two incidents involving trees on vehicles with entrapment, one individual trapped under a fallen tree, four ambulance requests, one gas emergency, one fire alarm activation, and 37 calls involving downed wires or electrical hazards,\u201d the Lake Geneva Fire Department said.<\/p>\n

The city said their first responders received over 100 calls for service after the storm. Public works crews had to work overnight to clear the roads of debris and work with power crews to fix the outages. Thousands of people were left without power.<\/p>\n

Throughout the weekend, the county and city worked together to look at providing water distribution and disaster services.<\/p>\n

The Red Cross of Wisconsin said<\/a> they helped with damage assessments, provided cleanup supplies and closed their shelter on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you or someone you know has been impacted by these storms and has not yet connected with the Red Cross, please call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767),\u201d the Red Cross said.<\/p>\n

Alliant Energy on Monday brought 60 crews from across Wisconsin and other states to work on power outages, according to Lake Geneva.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWalworth County is in the process of activating a call collection number to assist residents with access to resources and to help identify unmet needs,\u201d the city said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City leaders plan to give regular updates on storm recovery.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin Public Radio, \u00a9 Copyright 2026, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities released new details Monday afternoon about the children who drowned when a boat capsized in a sudden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[65,1202,48908,25057,876],"class_list":["post-98653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-geneva","tag-geneva","tag-news","tag-rural-voices","tag-storms","tag-weather"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116876543727666225","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}