A wet situation

The owner of Sha Sha Resort and his staff spent much of this week placing barrels on several docks to keep them from falling victim to Rainy’s rising waters.

“It’s coming up about 3 or 4 inches each day,” Herberg said Thursday of the lake’s levels, just hours before another downpour.

In the six summers Herberg and his wife, Jodi, have owned the resort, three of them have put some amount of water on their docks. But this year, he said, is the worst.

“It’s frustrating when you have people who rent dock space and they have to wade through water to get to their boat,” he said.

Sha Sha’s three docks that support it’s main come-and-go traffic are floating docks, which Herberg explained will rise with the water levels. However, the dock anchoring much of the boat rental space is a crib dock, or stationary dock, which is already partially submerged under water.

“What we do,” Herberg said, “is put an 8-inch stand on the dock and set barrels on top of it...That way if we get a strong south wind, the docks won’t break away. Our crib docks will be under water in the next three or four days.”

The blue and white barrel trend is taking over many businesses and residences on Rainy Lake. Thunderbird Resort, which has a mostly stationary docking system, has several barrels set up to keep the structures in place. Docks at Woody’s Rainy Lake Resort in Ranier are also covered in the containers.

“Rainy Lake is probably in the best shape right now of all the area lakes,” Herberg concluded. “But, it’s coming this way.”

And he’s right.

Phil Hart, owner of Pine Tree Cove Resort and the Gateway Store in Kabetogama, said his docks are “totally under water.”

“We’re going to start launching a sandbag effort,” he said.

Hart said he and other resort owners are scrambling to make out-of-town visitors aware of the situation.

“If guests launch a boat on the ramp, they won’t even see the docks,” he said. “They could run right over them.”

The last time Hart remembers Kabetogama’s water as high as it is today was in 1998 or 1999.

“It’s definitely been awhile since it’s created this much havoc,” he said. “Right now, it’s a waiting game to see how much water we’re going to get.”

With more rain in the weekend’s forecast, Hart expects conditions to worsen.

“There’s already debris floating all over the lake,” he said. “It hasn’t hurt our resort business yet, but we are alerting guests they won’t be able to keep a boat in the water overnight...We may lose a couple of customers.”

For now, all anyone can do is prepare. Hart said sandbags are available at his store and sand can be picked up at the Kabetogama Town Hall at no cost.

“We started dolling out bags this morning and yesterday,” he said Thursday. “Traffic is increasing as people get more worried about the situation.”

Rising water is also tormenting other businesses in the area.

Martha Karsnia wrote on The Journal’s Facebook page while golfing at Falls Country Club, holes No. 8 and 9 were closed because of the water.

The science behind it all

A release from the International Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Board Wednesday said storms over the past week brought more than 2 inches of rainfall to most of the Rainy River drainage basin, with many areas receiving higher amounts – up to 5 inches. Normal basin rainfall for the first week of June is about 1 inch.

Areas west of International Falls, like the Loman Park, are found almost completely submerged because of rising water levels.

Dams at both Namakan Lake and Rainy Lake are operated to maintain the lake levels within an operating band, called the rule curve, specified by the International Joint Commission. The level of Namakan Lake is 7 inches above the upper rule curve, or URC. The dams at the outlet to Namakan Lake have been fully opened since May 16. Further upstream, particularly heavy rainfall near the Vermillion River has led to the level at Crane Lake rising by over 16 inches since May 30.

Rainy Lake also rose above its URC, on May 29, and is now 6 inches above the URC. Rainy Lake’s level, the release said, has risen by 8 inches during the past seven days.

At Fort Frances-International Falls, the dam on the Rainy River has flow passing through all turbines and 13 of the 15 sluice gates. This configuration allows the dam to pass the flow at the rate received from the outlet of Rainy Lake. As the lake level rises, the rate of flow from the outlet of Rainy Lake increases. The last two gates will be opened as necessary to ensure maximum outflow from the dam.

Both Rainy Lake and Namakan Lake will continue to rise in the near term, and their ultimate peak levels will depend on the amount of rainfall received over the next few weeks.

The Rainy River is currently 7.2 feet above its median level at this time of year below the Fort Frances- International Falls dam and is 8.9 feet above the median level at Manitou Rapids, the release said. The level and flow at Manitou Rapids is rising quickly due to significant increases in flow from the Bigfork and Littlefork river basins which had some of the heaviest rainfall last weekend.