Flooding At Rr

[Danoinark]

OAF'er Steve Smith who fishes Roaring River regularly passed this information along and some pictures of the flooding in the Park. Thanks Steve.

Roaring River State Park staff members are assessing widespread damage to campgrounds and fishing areas after the trout stream rose and submerged a large portion of the park on Monday.

"We had extremely high water," said Dusty Reid, park superintendent. "The river got out of its banks and stayed out for approximately 24 hours."

Although the rainy forecast kept many campers away from Roaring River on Easter weekend, park staff members were forced to evacuate a few campers on Sunday and Monday.

"We evacuated campground #2 Sunday afternoon," said Reid. "Then we evacuated campground #1 at around 4:30 a.m. yesterday (Monday) morning. We had no personal property damage or injuries. We got everyone out safely before the water rose."

There was major damage to the roadway near the bridge located in front of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Lodge. Reid said the road would remain closed until repairs can be made to the area.

"Around 90 percent of the campgrounds are littered with heavy debris," said Reid. "Two campsite asphalt pads were washed away completely, the road in campground #3 is damaged and the fence around the pool was knocked down."

Reid said all the campgrounds will be closed until at least Friday morning. After park staff members assess damages, it will be decided which campsites will be opened. Other campsites will remain closed for another week or two until repairs are made.

"Park staff members stayed in the park closing roads as necessary," said Reid. "The staff stayed to make sure everyone got out safely."

At one point on Monday, the water rose nearly to the park office. Reid and park campground hosts were stranded in the office for around four hours until the waters receded.

"We moved everything off the office floor, because the water was getting so close to the office," said Reid. "We also had to close the Highway 112 bridge for around an hour and half yesterday (Monday), because Dry Hollow was running over the bridge."

Park staff members began cleanup efforts after the river went down on Monday.

"We started yesterday," said Reid, "but then the water began to rise again, and we went back into public safety mode until Tuesday morning."

[Brian K. Shaffer]

Dano - thanks for posting that!! I was really wondering about RR.

That is really not all that bad at all.. things will get to normal there pretty good, ya think ?

Wonder what kind of time table we are talking about....

Brian

[Buzz]

Wow. It's amazing how much water can come from that hole in the ground.

[KATroutman13]

That certainly appears to be the "aftermath" considering the way those banks look. Looks like it would be a good year to fish outside of the park.

[timsfly]

Wow. It's amazing how much water can come from that hole in the ground.

The hole in the ground (the spring) isn't the problem, it is those long hollows feeding into the park,

they are the reason for the flood, the spring never has risen enough to flood the river, but those hollows

when the rain falls right can come up 8-10' real fast.

[Greg]

We have a trip planned there about a month from now. Sure hope it's back to normal by then.

[timsfly]

The river is looking better every day, it should be in good shape in a few weeks.

[cself]

The river is looking better every day, it should be in good shape in a few weeks.

We were down there Friday night through Sunday afternoon and caught a good number of fish once we got them figured out. Found a couple pool's where we fished above the rock areas where the water slowed down enough to get good drifts and caught fish pretty consistantly. The water was murky enough that you couldn't site fish at all, but just fished the edges of ripples where I knew they should be and fished deep and it worked. Caught 60% of my fish on bright 3 colored egg patterns, and the rest were caught fishing sinking fly line with either a spinner of some sort or whooly buggers. Was worried when we saw the river friday evening, but was a great weekend after all. The river has changed a bit, mostly in the fly fishing zone around the handicap ramp with all the gravel being pushed in areas, and the washout of the banks. We saw a decent improvement on sunday morning, however the rain that came in around 11 probably didn't help much.

[cself]

Down in Campground 3.

[Brian K. Shaffer]

cself, That is one big root wad / stump, thanks for putting that pic up.