CARROLL COUNTY : Swim platform sails down lake
Posted on Saturday, May 24, 2008
The swim platform at the Beaver RV Park and Campground rode April floodwaters eight miles north to Missouri, and it won’t be back until lake waters recede.
When the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers opened the Beaver Dam floodgates last month, a wave of water flowed downstream through the small Carroll County town of Beaver.
The swim platform — a wooden deck on top of a steel frame and floaters — eventually snagged on a boat slip on Table Rock Lake near Eagle Rock, Mo.
A Missouri resident who keeps a boat at the slip realized the platform was from Arkansas and called Beaver Mayor Duane Kriesel.
“If you’d have seen the current here, you’d be surprised that it didn’t go farther,” Kriesel said. “If you had been on a canoe, you could’ve gotten to Branson pretty quickly that day.”
The Corps-owned RV park, which lies below Beaver Dam on Table Rock Lake, still is submerged.
“We can’t bring the platform back and anchor it where we want to until the water comes down,” Kriesel said.
The 16-by-20 foot platform is tied down and still floating near Eagle Rock.
At the appropriate time, L and H Dock Service of Blue Eye, Mo., will push the platform back down Table Rock Lake and anchor it at the RV park.
“If we don’t have to fight the current, it’ll take about three or four hours to get it back,” said Jim Best, the company’s general manager.
The National Weather Service recorded 8. 29 inches of rain in April — 3. 96 inches above the 30-year average at the Drake Field monitor in Fayetteville.
The weather service reported four days of significant rain in April. With water rising fast, the spillway at Beaver Dam was opened four times. The largest release in the dam’s 42-year history occurred April 10-12, said Jim Sandberg, an operations manager with the Corps.
Beaver Lake, Table Rock and Bull Shoals Reservoir are still well above normal levels.
The unprecedented gush of water surging north dislodged boat slips along Table Rock and Lake Taneycomo, Best said. One slip traveled four miles down the James River near Galena. A portable toilet also washed up on a Missouri man’s property.
“Beaver Lake started it all,” Best said. “It was critical that they turned it loose. It was either that or lose the dam.”
Beaver, population 95, leases the RV park from the Corps. Since Beaver is so small, the RV park, in large part, has come to define the look and feel of the town, Kriesel said.
This summer, however, it’s likely that the park won’t be in condition to host visitors. With the park’s near future in question, the town sees no point in ordering fireworks for this year’s July 4 th celebration, he said.
“We’re totally frustrated that there’s nothing you can do,” Kriesel said. “You just sit there every day and look at the floodwaters.”
The Corps doesn’t have money to repair the park, so Beaver applied for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Once the water recedes, Kriesel said, town officials will walk through the park to make a full assessment of the damage.
Best wasn’t surprised that the swim platform was yanked from its mooring.
“When the dam first opened, I said, ‘ It’s gone, ’” Best said. “And the next day, I get a call saying it’s in Eagle Rock.”
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