High water levels on the Illinois River are impacting folks looking to enjoy recreational activities like floating this weekend.<\/p>\n
Tubing Plans Disrupted<\/p>\n
Many people gathered by the water today, looking forward to tubing. However, the Grand River Dam Authority announced that private float permits would not be sold today or tomorrow due to elevated river conditions.<\/p>\n
River Levels on the Rise<\/p>\n
The Illinois River near Tahlequah reached above 9 feet Friday afternoon and is expected to go up even higher this weekend.<\/p>\n
GRDA emphasizes that while the river remains open, safety is their top priority, which is why commercial float operators have stopped services for the time being.<\/p>\n
Local Business Struggles<\/p>\n
Austin Spears, co-owner of Arrowhead Resort, shares, \u201cThis is what people come to do here. They come to float the rafts and kayaks.\u201d He expresses that it\u2019s been a rough season for businesses along the river.<\/p>\n
Economic Impact of Mother Nature<\/p>\n
Due to the unpredictable weather, Spears mentions, \u201cJune has been a struggle. We\u2019re approximately down 6,000 to 7,000 people. I\u2019m sure the other businesses are affected just like we are, but you know, it\u2019s Mother Nature. You win some, you lose some, so you just kind of roll with what you’ve got and keep on going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Encouragement for Visitors<\/p>\n
Spears acknowledges that customers aren\u2019t thrilled about not being able to float down the river but encourages those still coming out to enjoy the resort.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still got people coming, and they are aware of the river situation. We communicate with them to let them know they can still come, but they may just not be able to float. We\u2019re just hoping that the river goes down quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High water levels on the Illinois River are impacting folks looking to enjoy recreational activities like floating this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[19829,19824,192,19827,19828,19825,79,19826],"class_list":["post-24235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-arrowhead-resort","tag-austin-spears","tag-environment","tag-grand-river-dam-authority","tag-grda","tag-illinois-river","tag-science","tag-tahlequah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}