By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Among the properties flooded as the area received more than 19 inches of rain April 3-5 were multiple Glasgow parks.
All city parks were closed at one point during that period, and they were reopened as they were deemed safe for the public, but the playground at Beaver Creek Park remains closed for now.
Eddie Furlong, director of the city’s parks and recreation department, provided an update on the impact of the excess water to the city council Parks and Recreation Committee on Monday at its meeting just prior to the full council meeting, where he was also asked to briefly discuss the topic.
At that later meeting, he emphasized that when a park is closed, it is for the safety of the members of the public, and the restrictions need to be taken seriously.
He said people were going around the closed fence and getting into the park and walking when the water level went down, and the caution tape that was meant to keep people from using the playground was torn away and disregarded.
“When we close the park, it’s closed for a reason, so please stay out. It’s for your safety,” Furlong said at the council meeting, knowing it was televised and streamed for public viewing.
At the committee meeting, Furlong said the flooding at Beaver Creek Park was the second-highest he’d ever seen it in his 23 years with the department, “so it was pretty wild to see.”
Damages there included a few electrical transformer boxes that got shifted or knocked off their bases by the moving water and the debris it carried, and that was one of the main reasons that park was closed.
“It was a very serious safety issue. Somebody could have got out there and got electrocuted, potentially,” Furlong said. “Secondly, and just as important, was the water was 4 and 5 feet high through the majority of the park.”
He added that at one point, the only things that weren’t under water there were the floor of the relatively new pavilion shelter and the new bathrooms where the playground used to be. The water got into a couple of fields as well. At one of them, the fence got knocked down, not for the first time when it’s flooded, so he planned to meet with someone from the fencing company to weigh options for better securing it.
The electrical repairs were completed by Glasgow Electric Plant Board personnel by April 8, he said, but the mulch at the playground got washed away and has to be replaced, thus the continued closure there. He anticipated they would be able to reopen the playground by sometime Wednesday.
Three truckloads of mulch, at a cost of roughly $6,000, were ordered Monday, Furlong said, with two of those intended for Beaver Creek Park and the other for Gorin Park.
“The other extent of the damage – there is a long ditchline where we put the new water line in last summer that got washed out, all the dirt got washed out, so we’ve got to fill that back in once we get the playground done,” he said of Beaver Creek Park. “It’s not a safety issue or anything; it’s just filling the dirt back in and packing it in a little better, hopefully. So really the only cost that we should be out is the mulch – which we’ve filed a claim to see if insurance will help cover that. Other than that, it’s just cleanup that my guys have had to take care of.”
At Gorin Park, he said, the water level was probably the highest level he’d seen there. The entire grassy area behind the tennis courts was under water, as was the small ballpark at the front of the park, up to the infield. At Richardson Stadium, the water got up to the new blacktop and got into a planter, the top of which he estimated at 2.5 feet above the blacktop surface.
“But that’s as high as it got,” Furlong said. “It never got into the stadium, never affected the new bathrooms or anything.”
Actual damage at that park was in the form of two or three disc-golf baskets that are missing, which will cost about $1,000 to replace, he said.
Councilwoman Chasity Lowery, who chairs the committee, asked about Twyman Park. Furlong said there was a lot of flooding there, but not where it hurt anything.
After a flood there last year, he said, they had moved the fence that had fallen down inward from the creek about 8 feet, and the water hasn’t gotten to it since then.
Lowery also asked about Weldon Park, and he said it also had flooding but no damage.
Shifting gears, Furlong said he’d gotten a new consultation with Tennis Technologies regarding repairing cracks in the courts at Gorin Park. One option is to simply fill in the cracks at a cost between $10,000 and $12,000, which buys roughly a year and would need to be redone annually.
He said he’d gotten quotes from two other places previously.
For one of those companies to repair and resurface six of the courts would cost in the neighborhood of $60,000 to $70,000, but to do that with the other two, which are in the worst condition, would add another roughly $40,000 to the price tag, he said.
The city is applying for a grant through the U.S. Tennis Association to see whether they can get some help with the cost.
After some general discussions of how that timing would need to work around the high school tennis season and winter weather as well as the level of interest in the community.
Moving on to program discussions, Furlong said the volleyball season is wrapping up in a couple of weeks, and soccer starts Saturday with 359 kids ages 5 through 12 signed up. That’s just 11 fewer than last year’s group, which was the largest ever, he said.
Summer day camp registration started Monday, he said. That program will be based at the Liberty Street parks facilities due to construction at American Legion Park.
The department’s annual Easter egg hunt begins at 1 p.m. Saturday at Beaver Creek Park, with more than 12,000 eggs to be found.
No actions other than approval of minutes and such were taken by the committee. The other members present were Tommy Burris and Freddie Norris, with Councilman Terry Bunnell absent. Councilman Randy Wilkinson also attended.
