Rising river keeps maritime museum, submarine closed

Executive Director Greg Zonner pulls up rotten timbers Saturday from the deck of the USS Razorback at the maritime museum on the North Little Rock side of the Arkansas River.
Executive Director Greg Zonner pulls up rotten timbers Saturday from the deck of the USS Razorback at the maritime museum on the North Little Rock side of the Arkansas River.

Rising floodwaters have kept the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum and its USS Razorback submarine on the Arkansas River closed to visitors for its fourth weekend since last month.

photo

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Greg Zonner does some maintenance work Saturday on the deck of the USS Razorback submarine in North Little Rock.

"We missed out on 452 kids last week," counting school group tours, museum Executive Director Greg Zonner said Friday. The museum is normally open Wednesday through Sunday. "We canceled an overnight [on the submarine] and a birthday party. It's all missed revenue."

River levels reaching 17 feet cause water to overtake gangplanks for visitor access to the museum at North Little Rock's downtown riverfront. The river crested at more than 20 feet in Little Rock in mid-May and hovered near its flood stage of 23 feet for the past week.

A higher gangplank for staff access has allowed staff members to keep busy. There was the smell of fresh paint Friday inside the museum, and Zonner was sweating from doing maintenance on the submarine.

"We're taking advantage of the situation of having good weather and no groups to get work done," Zonner said. "June, July and August are our big months."

While the World War II Razorback submarine is the museum's featured attraction, Zonner said the museum is still awaiting word on the addition of the Pearl Harbor-surviving tugboat Hoga. The city has title of the tug but hasn't been able to transport it from Mare Island near Oakland, Calif., because of naval restrictions on how the 74-year-old tugboat is to be transported.

The Hoga is a National Historic Landmark, so designated for its crew's efforts to fight fires on battleships, including the USS Arizona, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The tug was later a fireboat for the city of Oakland.

North Little Rock obtained the title in 2005, proposing to add the historic ship to the maritime museum for preservation.

During the last week of May, the museum received approval from the Navy to change the city's tow plan portion of its transport contract for the Hoga to move it from Mare Island to San Diego. From there, a heavy lift could be available to place the 100-foot tug onto a cradle on a barge for transport -- a dry tow -- to New Orleans. The modification will allow a wet tow, pulled behind another boat, to San Diego.

The modification to the 2005 original contract is at the Pentagon, Zonner said, awaiting approval. He expected the final approval to come Friday, he said, but by that afternoon hadn't received any confirmation.

"I was told we would have a decision on the tow plan this week," Zonner said Friday. "They're trying to get this done and get it done as soon as possible."

The museum's board of directors has been heading a fundraising effort to pay for the Hoga's transport, with an early estimated cost of at least $1 million. That amount likely would decrease with the change in the tow plan opening up more opportunities to catch a barge already scheduled to travel to New Orleans from San Diego.

"We're continuing our fundraising efforts," for the Hoga's transport, said Bob Major, a maritime museum board member and executive director of the North Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, formerly the North Little Rock Visitors Bureau. "We have a number of pledges out there waiting for the Hoga to start coming here."

The Hoga's arrival could also lead to expansion of the museum, which Zonner said earlier this year has outgrown its space. In 2014, the museum had 21,664 visitors, including ones from all 50 states and 82 countries, according to museum figures.

Board members discussed earlier this year obtaining a 320-foot-by-54-foot barge, once a river casino, to create a larger, more attractive maritime museum, but those plans are on hold until the Hoga arrives, Zonner and Major said.

"All of that has been on the back burner," Zonner said. "The Hoga is our first priority. All of our concentration is on getting the Hoga here."

Metro on 06/07/2015

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