On 07/27/17 this is what we came to work to at Heart of America Golf Course. The Blue River, which runs through the river course flooded severely and was still rising all Thursday morning and afternoon.
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| More than 50% of the River Course was under water for hours. |
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| Once the river was high enough, it spilled into the pond flooding both #1 and #9 |
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Deer stranded on #7 green, which became an island during the flood.
We are able to track the river water levels from just up stream. We know the level the river must be at in order to spill over our bridges. This flood, which most people we have talked to believe is the worst of the courses history, crested 18 feet above the bridges.
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By the time the river was done rising, water was right at our front gate. Police shut done all the ways into the course and asked us to shut it down and leave. We have had flooding at HOA, but nothing ever like this.
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| Water inching closer and closer to our front gate. |
Seeing the substantial flooding, we were expecting to see some silt deposits and flood damage, but what we experienced was worse than expected,
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| Some of the course, including this tee area was under 10+ feet of water. |
Silt was deposited all over the course and cleanup has been extensive. Silt that is left to dry thick like this on the turf will likely kill it and must be removed as well as possible.
On the tee boxes we have used hoses and squeegees to remove the silt. Each tee box took us about 3 hours to clean.
As I am sure you have noticed, the River Course has been closed since the flood. Even though it looks as if many of the areas have dried enough for golf, any cart or foot traffic will be very detrimental to the turf. As you can see in these next photos, the damage from carts and foot traffic is substantial and guarantees loss of turf.
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| A mistake made by an employee, but shows well what cart traffic will do to the current condition of the turf. |
I would just like to say thank you for baring with us while we continue the extensive cleanup efforts and we will try to get the course back open and playable as soon as possible.
