Three adults and six children were rescued over Memorial Day weekend on the Cannon River in Rice County, just outside of Faribault.

“All of a sudden we saw a convoy of rescue vehicles coming down the driveway,” said Julie Lambert, a Rice County resident.

She pointed rescuers to a river access point on her land on Cabot Avenue.

“They were just sliding down the hill to reach those kids as fast as possible,” Lambert said. “It was pretty incredible.”

“They performed at least one rescue — wading out into the river, getting a person off a tree,” Faribault Fire Chief Dustin Dienst said.

Personnel from the Faribault Fire Department, the Rice County Sheriff’s Office and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources rescued the nine boaters.

Two canoes were entangled in debris in the water causing them to capsize. Others in the group tried to help and ran into trouble, according to Rice County emergency crews.

“Everybody had their life jacket, which I believe is the difference between a great outcome or us still having to look for victims in the river,” Dienst said.

There were no injuries reported.

“We were praying, and our prayers were answered,” Lambert said.

It’s hard to see the trees and other debris below the water line in the Cannon River, especially with fast-moving water and abnormally high river levels.

“If you pull up to the river and you look at that water and say, ‘That’s really honking through. I don’t know if I should do this,’ that’s your gut feeling saying, ‘Don’t do this,'” Dienst said.

The DNR has assembled a list of river conditions on its website, including offering advice for paddlers.

For example, in “very high” conditions on a river, the DNR says “paddling is considered dangerous and not recommended.”