Monday, September 12, 2011

A Beach Too Far

I’ve been watching the web site for lake levels on a daily basis as if lakes would some how miraculously fill with life-giving water. Canton Lake is down to 42%, so we rode down to look at it as we passed through the area. The water is so low the boat ramps have been barricaded and cabled off. If you stand on what should be the shoreline, the water’s edge is a hundred yards away. The floating pier is sitting on the dry lake bottom, and weeds grow two-feet high where people should be boarding watercraft. A flip-flop is lying on the ground where it had fallen overboard from a boat sometime past, patiently waiting for its owner’s return. The stone jetty that should be a breakwater, protecting the launching ramp and pier from on-shore waves, is now just a barren, dry pile of rocks. Even beyond the water’s edge, there is no depth as birds walk around knee-deep fifteen feet from shore.

Jean looked across the lake and asked what the white poles were on the west shore. Back on May 26 I wrote about the EF-3 tornado that had swept the area and destroyed the Canadian campground. I explained that the “poles” were the bleached, dead tree trunks left from the tornado. The lake looks as depressed as I feel.

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