Viewing the Aftermath

Four months after the tremendous rainfalls that hit much of Texas around Memorial Day, I wondered how our parks are doing. Many state parks as well as Corps of Engineer parks were heavily damaged. Texas State parks web sites report that all but four of the damaged parks are up and running much to the delight of Texas residents and other visitors. While things may not be perfect at all the parks, people are camping and having fun. Blanco State Park took a lot of damage from the river flooding but the majority of debris (and there was a lot of it) has been removed so that people could enjoy the park over the summer. The dam still needs some work. I've heard that volunteers

I took a drive out to Canyon Lake with the Traveling Longdogs for company. They are always up for a ride. The COE swimming area was up and running as well as the marina. This was great news since even the road out to those areas was completely under water.

Next stop was Potters Creek. The COE website still says that this park could be closed for up to a year. Work has been done in one area but the damage is still very evident from the area that I could see. There is no access to the other areas.

You can see the debris piled up.

On my drive, I saw this cute little trailer. The picture is terrible unfortunately but you can see the little deck that has been added to the back of the trailer with room for one chair and a little awning. My first thought was that the extra weight behind the axle might cause the trailer to tip back but the owner solved that with one little support under his "deck". Such ingenuity.

The water is not up very high any more.

Somehow all this would will need to be removed.

I can't remember the last time that this float was actually floating.

But it sure is floating now.

Makes me wonder what the water level will be like by the time this park is finally repaired and back to normal.

I spoke to someone and asked about volunteer help. I was told that many people had volunteered but the COE would not allow any volunteers based upon concern about liability issues. I guess the state of Texas was more concerned about getting the parks back open to the public than concentrating on liability.....oh wait, I bet they just got the volunteers to sign liability waivers....a win for everyone.

We also traveled over to Cranes Mill COE park on the other side of the lake. The COE websites say Cranes Mill is closed until 30 September. The RV area looked fine....I couldn't really see any damage and I understand the bathrooms were not affected. Hmmmm.....I saw people camping in the RV area. Now the tenting area is another story. It suffered more damage and is gated off so 30 September might not be a reality there as I couldn't see any work going on there at least from the far side of the gate.

Camping in Texas has been impacted quite a bit from an overabundance of rain in a short period of time. Kind of ironic when lack of rain is usually the problem.