Illinois River outfitters in Oklahoma are reporting revenue losses of about 50 percent for the 2013 Memorial Day weekend as compared with previous years.
Steady rain throughout the week before the national holiday, combined with weather forecasts for heavy rains over the holiday weekend and recommendations against river activity from Oklahoma media outlets, led many potential customers to cancel their plans, said Ed Fite, administrator for the Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Commission.
“We’ve been blessed this spring to have heavy rainfall,” Fite said. After heavy rains last Wednesday caused the river to swell at its headwaters near Hogeye in Arkansas’ Washington County, the flows made their way toward Tahlequah, Okla.
“It appeared that those flows were going to be complicated by additional rainfall, but that did not occur this past weekend. I’m to blame for getting in front of a TV camera and telling what I knew.”
Fite appeared Friday on an ABC affiliate newscast in Tulsa, wearing an inflatable vest, warning Oklahomans of potentially dangerous conditions, with water moving twice as fast as its typical flow rate. Fite said his statements that the river levels would likely ebb later in the weekend were edited from the broadcast, leaving potential floating enthusiasts with the impression that the entire weekend was, well, a wash.
According to the National Weather Service, May 22 levels on the Illinois River reached 10.3 feet at Tahlequah and 11.4 feet at Watts,just below flood stage.
The Illinois River Sub-Basin, which covers much of Cherokee and Adair counties in Oklahoma, and the western portions of Benton and Washington counties in Arkansas, received between 1 and 3 inches of rain May 22.
Nicole McGavock, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Tulsa, said that while such amounts of rain in the basin aren’t significant by historical standards, the area’s recent drought makes them seem so.
“We’ve been in a drought the largest portion of two years. So when we see normal rainfall, it seems like an anomaly, but this year’s not breaking any records,” McGavock said.
L.D. Stephens, owner of War Eagle Resort near Tahlequah, said Memorial Day weekend is to river outfitters what the Christmas shopping season is to many other retailers.
“That’s the weekend we get caught up on the money we spend,” Stephens said. “I’ve talked to most of the other outfitters, we’re all off about 50 percent from last year.”
Stephens said his operation typically makes between $60,000 and $70,000 from cabin rentals, merchandise sales and flotation device rentals during the Memorial Day weekend.
“You don’t make that money up, by the way,” said Stephens, who said his facilities are booked at near capacity through midsummer, when floating season typically comes to an end as water levels become too low to effectively maneuver a canoe or kayak.
Barbara Kelley, co-owner of Diamondhead Resort, also near Tahlequah, said her business lost out on anticipated revenue when about 200 reservations for canoes, kayaks and other devices fell through.
“We should have put out at least 400 to 500 each day,” Kelley said. “We didn’t sell out of rafts, which we always do on Memorial Day weekend. That hurt us big time.”
Kelley said Diamondhead missed an opportunity to recoup some of its losses Saturday morning, as she turned away last-minute customers while holding onto canoes and other floatation devices reserved for other customers who neither showed up nor called to cancel their reservations.
Kelley said that although Diamondhead doesn’t currently require a deposit to reserve floatation devices, that experience has caused her to reconsider that policy.
The Oklahoma Scenic Rivers Commission administers permits to 21 commercial floatation device operations in Oklahoma, 14 of which are vendors that rent kayaks, canoes, inner tubes and rafts to the public. While the commission’s advisories on water safety levels aren’t legally enforceable, most vendors do defer to the commission’s advice when it comes to high-water advisories.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 05/29/2013