Saylorville Lake Cloudy - 71 Degrees
Iowans are letting out a big sigh as the rain stops for a couple of days and the temperatures moderate. We have a big weekend happening that we’ve been looking forward to since before we returned in April. Our daughter’s boys 6 and 3 ½ are with us till Sunday.
The reservoir is doing its job this week. Even though it is a major boating and camping destination in central Iowa, its real purpose is flood control. With historic rain fall in Iowa the past 2 weeks and flooding occurring in Des Moines south of the dam the Corps of Engineers is holding back water so Des Moines has half a chance to keep its two major rivers in their banks as they meander through downtown. A perfect scenario for flooding is setting up. Northwest Iowa, where the Des Moines river that feeds Saylorville Lake on it’s way to the Mississippi, begins, has received feet of rain this past few weeks. That is translating to the lake levels rising at the rate of 4-6 feet per day. The boat ramp near us is almost to the top and there has already been one vessel casualty in the marina. A buoyed house boat’s bilge pumped failed as we got 3” of rain in less than an hour on Wednesday. When I drove across the dam on my way home from work, I saw it listing badly to the back corner. Only about half of the cabin and the front of one pontoon was above water.
Champ worked an extra day yesterday, helping the rangers place hazard buoys, remove docks and signs. Gates were closed to the beach and launch area here at Sandpiper since the entire area will soon be underwater. The portable bathroom buildings were removed with a crane and all the picnic tables and canopies from the beaches are now sitting in Volunteer Village, where they should stay high and dry along with us.
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The lake is predicted to crest next Saturday and 884 MFS (mean feet above sea level ) Normal pool is 836 MFS and the lake goes over the emergency spillway at 890 MFS. Everyone is holding their breath hoping the forecasters have the rain prediction correct. It will be a close call.
The veteran volunteers are talking a lot about 2011 when Volunteer Village became lake bottom and all the volunteers were evacuated to the public campgrounds till the water subsided and all the clean up took place. Everyone learned to run a chain saw that summer! I remember that summer as well. We camped and boated here all summer. From our former perspective as visitors, we only noticed that most of the boat ramps were closed and the lake was nearly twice it’s normal size which made for some nice boating. The lake was so high we were able to get up into the river channel and went several miles north. Now, from our perspective as volunteers and residents here we see how much activity is going on behind the scenes to preserve property, make it as safe a possible for visitors and monitor the quickly changing conditions.
The weather has also changed many job descriptions for the volunteers. One thing we are learning quickly in this work camping life is that weather can and usually does result in ‘other duties as assigned’ .
We’ll enjoy the weekend with our daughters two boys here and watch the lake rise.
Until tomorrow…
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