There was a team of specialists that came from Sea World in Orlando (about 30 miles away) that did all the heavy lifting.

some good PR.

how even one manatee, let alone 15, can get stuck in a storm drain?

They must make them different in Florida.

can so often be seen at the outflow of the local electric plants that at least one has turned it into a tourist area to view them.

The interview was obviously done before all the manatees were located, since the number she cites vary. See the three videos on the right of the article: http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/on-the-town/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2015/2/23/_15_manatees_stuck_i.html

Pretty much the manatees follow a leader who seeks out warmer, fresh water and they just keep going. I'm not sure if manatees can't back up, but apparently they don't in tight spaces.

Never knew this about manatees. Poor babies.

Can't Florida put something like a grate cover over the end of these culverts? It would make them a lot safer for all. Can you just imagine a kid exploring and getting stuck?

Storm drains in Florida tend to be wide open and leaves, trash, branches, whatever get washed down them. Grates at the top would have to be cleaned out very often; grates at the bottom maybe less often, but would still need regular maintenance.

Your comment about the kid brings back bad memories. Here in Tallahassee there used to be an open ditch that was part of the storm drain system with a road that ran on both sides of it. One rainy year back in the 1970s the ditch overflowed, flooding the road. A number of cars were stalled in the window high water and some of the neighborhood kids swam out to make sure the drivers had gotten out of the cars. One kid was washed into the ditch and sucked into the outlet that ran in pipes underground. He was drowned. I lived only a block away and heard all the emergency vehicles and workers trying to find the boy and get his body out of the pipes.

The city's response was to put chain link fence around the ditch. The fence was often knocked down by cars and by debris when the road flooded. It got to be such a nuisance the city took it down, leaving the ditch completely open again.

Only in the last few years has the city addressed the main problem - an open storm drain system that was a death trap. They put in a large underground pipe system and paved over that, turning what had been two narrow lanes on either side of the ditch into a four lane road with turn lanes down the middle.

For the first time in the over forty years I've lived in Tallahassee, in a wet year with flooding that section of road did NOT flood.

they go down blind allies, get stuck and rely on government to help them out?{like social security & medicare&medicaid} ( and yes I live in Ohio, we do not have manatees here, but swimming to the warmth I can understand).
I am glad they were rescued.

is an aquatic mammal with a paddle shaped tail.

So, yeah, manatees are like teapartiers!

I am sorry that I insulted a useful, pleasant mammal. Manatees have done nothing to harm anyone, ever.

...and that's being stuck in a storm drain with 14 other manatees.
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