Normalcy returning to marina

Sunset Marina has all the appearances of returning to normal as the water has receded from all but the lower road and the parking lot for the 100 and 200 docks.

One of the steel panels protecting the marina building has been removed so boaters can get to the office, canvas shop and the Coast Guard Auxiliary Station and Monica has moved back into the office.

On the docks, all of which are approachable by wooden ramps, the power has been turned back on so those who have automatic battery chargers are getting their batteries rejuvenated.

It will be a few days before boaters will be able to drive into the marina because the dirt beneath the blacktop is closer to soup than anything solid. It also will be a few days before water to the docks can be turned back on.

But it's coming. slowly but surely.

Sunset Marina shedding its water

The first thing you notice as you approach Sunset Marina is that there is a small bank at the edge of the water near the entrance.

Sure, later in the season the bank will be 14 to 16 feet high, but it's good to see even a 6-inch bank after the sixth greatest flood in history.

Further into the marina, where the first turnoff into the parking lot is, the water is almost completely off the drive. Further along the south road only a few feet of water remain on the road where a low area drains the parking lot. The only other water is near the southeast corner of the buildings, and of course the road to the flooded parking lot for the 100 and 200 docks.

If the water keeps falling at that rate boaters will be able to drive into the marina sometime next week.

Boaters can now walk in

The shuttle service for Sunset Marina boaters ended Wednesday -- they can now walk into the marina.

Wednesday afternoon the water was off the entrance road into the marina and about half off the road where it splits to go into the front parking lot. In other words, you could walk into the marina without getting your feet wet. The water looks like it did when we returned from vacation a week ago Monday when it was on the way up.

The major only part of the marina still under water is the south road which goes around the back of the marina.

Most of the uncovered part of the marina already has been washed down and the ramps to the docks have been blocked up so boaters can get down to boats with dry feet.

River falling faster than predicted

It was amazing how fast the river was dropping at Sunset Marina. Saturday it was just below a mark on one of the orange barrels used to block traffic on Sunset Driver; Monday it was a foot below the hole. The water also had pulled back from half of the small parking lot across from the entrance to the marina to just a fourth of it.

Even though it was sprinkling Monday afternoon, several people were ready for a shuttle ride to their boats and Chuck said they were no longer running the pumps to keep the water out of the buildings. In fact, he said, you could walk completely around the main building without getting your feet wet.

It's still possible for a severe storm with a lot of wind or rain to damage the marina, but barring that, it has weathered the Flood of 2011.

Marina inunidated

Sunset Marina is now almost entirely inundated. The only dry areas are around the apartment/restroom building, some of the grassed area where the hardstand used to sit and some of the main marina building housing the office, canvas shop, workshop and the Coast Guard Auxiliary Station.

The area of the Coast Guard Auxiliary Station, canvas shop and part of the office are surrounded by a steel barrier covered with plastic and sandbagged around the base. Even though the water level around these areas is 4 to 6 inches higher than the floors, inside the barrier it still is dry as the barrier does its job with the help of several sump pumps.

Marina employees now are on duty 24 hours a day, running the boat owners' shuttle from 3 to 8 p.m. and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and checking the pumps to make sure they are working.

Outside the marina in Sunset Park the water has reduced the size of the park considerably. The small parking lot across from the entrance to the marina has been reduced in size by a third and Sunset Drive is covered by water from the parking lot north. The bike path along the east edge of the park is open as far north as the parking lots across from the east launching ramp where it is flooded by water from the slough on the east.

One walker on the path said he saw two fox kits about the size of a cat playing next to the path. His dog and the kits stood staring at each other for a while before they decided to head to their den.

From the look of the graph on the Quad-Cities Online home page it looks like it will be quite a while before the water recedes to the tops of the banks.

Marina’s Closed

I stopped by Sunset Friday evening; the road into the marina (*1) is indeed closed – along with the road into the park.  Though if you enter via 18^th Ave you can still get most of the way into the park.  Currently about 150 feet of road is blocked off.  Just beyond the jogging path I watched a pair of ducks floating by and bobbing for some sort of duck-treat about five feet off shore – right over the erstwhile gas dock ramp (*2).

            Sunset is now also closed to the general public.  A Per Mar guard is stationed at the entrance to the marina.  Boat owners can still get in to check on their boats by showing the guard ID to check against a list of owner’s names.

I didn’t bother going any further than the guard Friday; the hard driving, cold rain/sleet curtailed any desire I had for outside sight–seeing.  I suppose if there’s any silver lining to Friday’s weather it’s that it came during a flood when no one wants to be out on the river anyway.

            Saturday evening I did make it down to check on the boat.

            The last of the flood wall is up, running along the main building’s (*3) windows, with a double layer of heavy plastic over it and sandbagged in place.  The water is not yet up onto the front parking lot (*4), but that is only because the asphalt rises just above ground level.  By Sunday I’m sure we’ll see at least puddles creeping onto the parking lot.

Along with closing the place up the power has now been shut of too.  The street lights are still on, but otherwise the place is quiet and dark.  I’m not sure if the eerie stillness is just my imagination pumping up an otherwise normal off-peak evening or if the encroaching waters really have given extra layer of muffling insulation to the marina.

            The floating docks are now level with the shore so that the ramp that normally leads down to the docks now rises up and then back down.

            I wanted to check the bilge to make sure we weren’t taking on any unexpected water.  The engine hatch is large, heavy and awkward and, due to what I believe to be a lack of foresight, is very difficult to simply to simply lift and lean because of the way the seat edges stick out.  The hatch is either securely in place or it’s been wrestled completely free.  Or, in my case, lifted about a foot then allowed to rest on my shoulder blades after I’d squeezed under the thing.  So, this was the position I was in, sprawled across the back deck held firmly in place by an engine hatch while my head and arms dangled down and my flashlight light plumbed the depths of the bilge, as I absently-mindedly listen to all the sounds a harbor makes and thinking how forlorn they sounded; the breeze through the metal roof, the water lapping against the hulls, mooring lines stretching and relaxing, leaves blowing along the dock just outside the unzipped canvas.  It was about this time that it occurred to me that I didn’t remember seeing any leaves on the dock.  As I was quite possibly the only person in the marina it didn’t seem likely that I’d simply heard someone walking by.  Besides this was more a scratchy sound than a footfall sound.  My over-active imagination aside I decided it was just the sound of the docks flexing.  None-the-less in short order I’d decided I’d gleaned about all I could from an empty bilge and wormed my way back out and secured the boat.  I had just reached the up-and-down ramp’s apex when a raccoon and I stood regarding each other.  He was just heading up the ramp, about 30 or 40 feet in front of me, but after giving it some thought he scurried away, his clawed little feet making, to me at least, what sounded like scratchy sounds on the wooden ramp.  So it might not have been the Loch Potter monster that I’d heard with my head wedged into the engine compartment, but regardless, the next time I check on the boat I’m zipping up the canvass behind me.

*  In case you’re not familiar with Sunset Marina’s layout I’ll try and fit the parts of the marina I mention into the aerial picture of the marina at the top of this blog.  The bottom of the picture is the west side.

1. Entrance Road: X-shaped intersection near top, right hand corner.  Just below the "oo" in "Floods".
2. Gas dock: “Top” of the lake, near the center of the picture.

3. Main buildings: The buildings at the center, right-hand side of the picture.

4. Front parking lot:  Above and just to the right of the buildings at the center, right-hand side of the picture.

Last Minute Preparations Made for Rising Waters

The imminent closing of the marina has brought lots of last minute preparations to Sunset.  Monday evening there were still seven boats left in the front parking lot (*1); by this afternoon there was one left and I’m told that one’s going in tomorrow.  The back lot (*2) still has about 20 left in it, but about half of those are on trailers.  The crew at the marina says, that with few exceptions, they should all be in by Friday.  A couple of the boat owners were there today getting the finishing touches applied to their babies.  Elsewhere in the marina other signs of  “packing up the sidewalks” could be seen, such as taking down the fences from around the dumpsters and gathering loose equipment.

Thursday the marina plans to sandbag the erected floodwall that runs along in front of the office building’s (*3) windows.  After Friday Sunset’s secretary, Monica, says the office will be moving to the public works building.  The phones will be transferred to there so they can be reached via the same phone number.

Sunset Park (*4) continues to get narrower as the water levels rise also.  The backwater in between the east side of the park and the interstate (*5) now stretches unbroken from the park’s south parking lots all the way to the interstate’s embankments.  About 11 a.m. today I stopped by the picnic shelter near the ball diamond (*6).  Its parking lot is blocked off but you could still walk to it with out getting wet.  The last bit of sidewalk leading up to it was wet but didn’t actually have water on it.  The water came up to the edge of the shelter itself, but sitting on its three- or four-inch foundation it was still a dry island.  Six hours later, at 5 p.m., the path was now covered with water and about 10 square feet of the shelter had water on it.  The flood's-a-come’n.

*  In case you’re not familiar with Sunset Marina’s layout I’ll try and fit the parts of the marina I mention into the aerial picture of the marina at the top of this blog.  The bottom of the picture is the west side.  Further to the west is the Mississippi, and beyond that Iowa.  (Yes, the river runs North and South here, the only place in the Quad-Cities.)

1. Front parking lot:  Above and just to the lefht of the buildings at the center, right-hand side of the picture.

2. The back lot: Just below the buildings at the center, right-hand side of the picture.

3. The office buildings: The buildings at the center, right-hand side of the picture.

4. Sunset Park: Just above the marina, left 2/3s of the picture.

5. Interstate: Runs along the top of the picture.

6. Ball diamond: In Sunset Park, just beyond the left side of the picture.

ROAD CLOSING

The river is expected to creep high enough to warrant closing the road into Sunset marina this Friday.  The marina is also planning on turning off the power to the docks on Friday.  The exact time for both of these measures has not yet been determined.

            Judging the water levels at the marina can be deceptive; the waterline at the boat lift well seems to be holding steady; however the back road and parking lot (leading to the 100 and 200 docks) are now completely covered with running water over them.  (This is the parking lot in at the bottom of the blog’s lead-in picture.)

A few boats remain dry-docked at Sunset, but most of the work on them that’s going to be done seems to have wrapped up for now.  Most—  but not all;  one or two diehard boaters were out this weekend and Monday pushing to make final preparations on their boats while they can still be launched.

Hail’s pounding just one more tic.

I checked on the marina today with a bit of trepidation considering the rains of the past couple of days, especially the pounding we got Friday night/Saturday morning.  For those of you that missed it, I was awoken about 4:00 am to the sound of bean-sized hail bouncing off the roof.  After reregistering on what it was that I was hearing I remembered I hadn’t gotten around to putting the car in the garage.  Worried about possible hail damage I dash out to remedy that.  Ten to fifteen seconds to get to the car, and a like amount of time to get from the garage to the back door:  20 to 30 seconds in the rain and I was soaked to the bone.  I had to wring my jeans out in the tub.  A rain like that practically bounces along the ground and into the storm drains to the river, especially coming on top of the earlier rains that would have saturated the ground.  However I was relieved to see that river had only ticked another inch or so higher in the preceding 24 hours, it’s typical ascent for the past several days.  Bringing home the point again that what happens locally is not as critical as what goes on to the north of us.

            The marina’s road on the far end leading to 100 and 200 docks (closed for a while now) now has running water over it, and the total amount of that back parking lot that remains dry is a section of road with room for about two cars.  Friday the guard geese were patrolling near the road's barricades, but today they were again absent.

Mississippi holding steady

The Mississippi River at Sunset Marina is holding steady -- inching up and inching down -- but primarily holding steady.

The road to the lower parking lot, behind the trees in the aerial photo, is uncovered with left debris stranded. If we're lucky, it will stay there until summer with nothing to wash it off.

Few people are working on their boats at the marina -- those who were working on their boats have them in the water and the fewer than two dozen who were gambling on the flood not getting to the parking lot are still waiting for warmer weather.

So conditions at the marina are in a limbo that may last another month.

Quarter-foot rise covers parking lot

Monday, April 4
The river has risen another quarter-foot to 16.25 and the level now is high enough to cover the 100 and 200 Dock parking lot and part of the road leading to it behind the trees in the aerial photo. The pair of geese seem happy now and when another pair started to fly in they were strongly discouraged.

In addition the road leading to the north launching ramp and the road out onto the peninsula separating Lake Potter from the Mississippi River is closed off near the entrance to the Rock Island Boat Club.

The wait begins

Saturday, April 2

The waiting begins, both for those who have boats at Sunset Marina and for the entire Quad-Cities.

It was amazing how much of the 100 and 200 Dock parking lot got covered with the about .2 of a foot rise. Since Friday the water had come up on both sides of the lot, leaving only a space as wide as a two-lane road down the middle. But the water didn't come over the road, so all the debris is being swept down the slough between the marina and Pettifer Island. And the pair of geese are back.

At 10 p.m. Saturday the water had crested at 16 feet and was expected to hold steady until Sunday then begin a slow fall, very slow. Now all anyone can do is watch the crest and the storm clouds up north in the weather report. If there are no significant rains, the crest should stay where it is before it begins to fall. If a major storm hits them, our water can come up -- possibly fast.

The fall is predicted to be excruciatingly slow, so we'll remain vulnerable until the river gets down to a lower stage.

Flooding more obvious at Sunset Marina

Friday, April 1

The water at Sunset Marina is just beginning to look like it's high. At the north end of the parking lot for the 100 and 200 docks the water is starting to move onto the pavement and the approach to the 200 Dock is covered. On the West side of the lot the water is about a dozen feet or more past the concrete parking bumpers. The pair of geese that have been patrolling the shoreline have given up and left.

When I was at the marina Friday the water was hitting 15.8 feet -- it has just .4  of a foot to go before it crests, probably Tuesday, at 16.2. It could stay that high for as long as four to six weeks. During this entire time we will be vulnerable to above normal rains that could push it high, fast.

All around Lake Potter the high water is becoming more obvious: More of the beginning of the walking path is covered, as is a section near the fuel dock for the marina; water is higher in the parking lot across the road from the east launching ramp, and about two-thirds of the north parking ramp is covered. The launching dock for the east ramp, which had been moved close enough to shore to allow a dry access, is now about two feet from the water's edge.

And the marina's parking lot -- just over a week ago covered in boats -- now has fewer than two dozen waiting to be launched and most of those aren't ready for the water yet.