Lake Conway flooded last year--disastrously--and it took us months to repair and recover. Poor oversight and response on the part of the lake managers made things worse than it had to be, but the event was so serious that flooding was unavoidable even in the best of circumstances.
The big rain event this week was seen to be approaching well in advance of its arrival. Lake managers opened the dam gates and lowered the lake, and sand and bags were made available around the lake's landings. The rains began in late afternoon Tuesday, intensifying through the night and continuing through Wednesday; the total at our Conway house was more than 5 inches in all. An unwelcome additional inch fell on Thursday afternoon and evening.
Today we drove out to Lake Conway to check on our place....
The dock surface is under water; snags have been driven in by wind and waves. The lake is about 4 feet above normal (thoroughly out of its banks.)
Where's the chainsaw? These snags are massive.
The view from the swing...the fence is 20 feet from the normal lake's edge. All of my little rosebushes are under water. They survived last time, so I expect them to live through this, too.
Never did light off this fire ring--it was too windy when we were out last weekend.
Way more water than we need....you can see that the lake has receded somewhat, leaving a broad line of detritus at the high-water mark. I will be raking it up and burning it for weeks to come, after I sort out the junk (bait cans, water bottles, bobbers, lures, etc.) that was dumped by boaters.
The crepe myrtles and day lilies are enthusiastic about conditions.
The chain-link fence has a line-up of snags; the dock is out of reach for now, and the crepe myrtle in the previous shot is now on the left of the picture. The ridge of dross in the foreground is what I will be raking up and burning for some days to come.
Coots are swimming blithely through the yard. It will take some days for the lake to return to its normal bed. We are hoping this is our only high-water event for this spring. Cross your fingers!
Major storms beginning April 15th have battered Arkansas (and much of the Southern tier of states.) Heavy rains have saturated the ground and then, as they continued, created serious flooding which continues to increase statewide as creeks, rivers, and lakes reach record levels. Lake Conway, where we have a little getaway home, has risen to unheard of levels; our neighbors, who have lived on the lake for 33 years, have never seen anything like this.
The view from the sunroom is pretty wet. This part of the house is the lowest, and the high water line is at 18".
The propane tank was afloat, breaking a connector and leaking; the fire department came out and turned it off. We will have the LP provider take the tank away, since the propane heater was ruined. An electric replacement will be simpler.
In the foreground is a huge snag that washed in where our fencing was being repaired on one side of the property.
Our neighbor's equipment shed--pretty much everything in it is toast.
Below, our shed was a pretty big mess inside, but we have hope that the miter saw and chain saw will survive.
Big snag! Definitely hope the chain saw has survived its dunking. (It was up a big higher on something heavy that didn't float and turn over.)
The worst thing about a flood is the stench. The water is contaminated by a multitude of substances.
We are relatively fortunate. Although we didn't have flood insurance (we're on slightly higher ground and had never had water into the house) we can afford the repair and replacement costs (though we'll wince). This is not our primary residence, either, and we've gotten off relatively lightly, considering that only a few things were completely ruined--none of it irreplaceable. Families of Canada geese are enjoying swimming through the yard, which is still deep under water.
Lake Conway was constructed in the late 1940's as a water-supply and recreational (hunting and fishing) site of 40,000 acres; five dams control the water level--or that is, they are meant to. Burgeoning construction has added more run-off to the five creeks that feed the lake, and increased incidences of flooding have been an issue. (A previous post illustrated our own post-flood repairs from Christmas, 2009.)
We have a small home on the lakefront that basically functions as our basement--something most homes lack in this part of the country. It's space for hobbies that we used to pursue in the huge basement in Ohio--refinishing and wine-making, to name two. This spot is 20 minutes from our house in town, making it easy to run out for a lunch break--just to check on things--or to spend a night to facilitate a crack-of-dawn chance to fish.
My favorite thing is to sit on the swing and gaze at the water, especially as the sun gets low in the sky. The light on the bare trunks of the cypresses has an intensity that excites the eye. The brilliance lasts just a few minutes, and then.....in a blink, it's gone.
I really should use a better camera.
I'll be interested to see what the quirky blogspot program does with this format. (It never comes out the way I expect it to--even when I look at the Preview.)
And now, to all a good night.
Something of a red-letter experience to report! We headed out to the lake late on steamy Sunday afternoon, with dinner in the cooler. When we arrived, a great blue heron was perched on the dock railing; he (or she) appeared unperturbed by our presence. The heron stretched, preened, and walked about for several hours before flying out to the cypress stumps in mid-lake toward nightfall.
Why no picture? Didn't have the wits to take the camera! Sorry!
Monday morning: up at dawn to go out and fish (it's nice to be retired,)-- well-supplied with crickets and red-worms. I caught a large blue-gill and then a red-ear almost at once. Hubby Dearest, fishing with lures, wasn't getting much action. Presently, though, he switched to live bait and got in on the fun.
It is not very often that I out-fish my husband, but he must have been holding his mouth wrong or something. I just kept pulling in one nice keeper after another, and a wide variety--a hybrid striped bass, some blue-gill, some red-ear, some pan-fish (generally referred to as 'bream'--pronounced 'brim.')
Thanks to cloud cover and a nice breeze, we weren't driven inside before the fishing slowed down close to 9 a.m. It was absolutely my best fishing day ever! I was sorry the heron wasn't around, as I would have shared some of the bream I threw back as too small. We saw quite a few green herons, including one that visited the dock once we were sitting down to a very late breakfast. And now the sun's out, with a prediction of 97 degrees (and heat index of 107.) Luckily, we're back home where there's a pool.
Christmas 2009 will be remembered on Lake Conway for the 11+ inches of rain that fell on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Poor monitoring of the lake level, late response in opening the dam floodgates, and high winds all played a part in creating serious problems for all of the lakefront homeowners (and many who live well back from the lakeside.) Huge snags, driven by the wind and waves, battered the shoreline and structures. Floodwaters entered homes and closed access roads.
The water is still high, but the lake is mostly back in its bed in this photo.
Our place is on (comparatively) high ground, so the house was safe, although the heat/air ducts in the crawl space were damaged. A storage shed was floated off its foundation blocks. We lost a lot of soil and grass around the big trees, leaving roots exposed. Massive amounts of debris and detritus were floated in, covering the ground, patio, and drive. Because the damage was largely wind-driven, our insurance covered some of the repair costs. The shed was demolished and hauled off.
The dock was renovated--actually an improvement.
The fencing was replaced (upgraded to chain link,) and relocated to a previous fence-line, further out from the house. Last week, with the water low, big earth-movers brought in shale, rock, and topsoil, stabilizing the shoreline and installing riprap for erosion control, then repairing the damage done by the big equipment, which had left ruts and gouges everywhere.
Despite the heat and humidity, we raked, seeded, and mulched the bare soil, putting the sprinkler on the planted areas.
It's not the best time to be seeding, but the final work had to wait for conditions to be right. Some long-awaited rains have helped, and the new grass was up in a week.
The eroded areas under the big oaks and along the old fence-line had received topsoil and sod back in mid-Spring. Big turtles from the lake come ashore and dig nests for their eggs--not the most helpful thing, but part of the territory. (Crows, raccoons, skunks, and who knows what else dig the eggs up and devour them; the survival rate must be extremely low.)
In the upper part of this shot, you can see part of a big snag that was pulled out of the water. The cedar is incredibly dense and heavy. After some work with the chain-saw, we are hauling the logs to the woodpile for future campfires--once it cools off, that is.
