{"id":25830,"date":"2015-12-29T11:33:20","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T17:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=25830"},"modified":"2015-12-29T11:33:20","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T17:33:20","slug":"record-flood-caps-year-of-el-nino-driven-damage-to-illinois-river-tourist-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/12\/29\/record-flood-caps-year-of-el-nino-driven-damage-to-illinois-river-tourist-areas\/","title":{"rendered":"Record Flood Caps Year of El Ni\u00f1o-Driven Damage To Illinois River Tourist Areas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/launch.newsinc.com\/?type=VideoPlayer\/Single&widgetId=1&trackingGroup=69016&siteSection=tulsa_nws_loc_sty_pp&videoId=30124133\" height=\"349\" width=\"620\" frameborder=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p><p>Flooding December 26-28 caps off a year that saw the Illinois River damaged by extreme rainfall time after time as Oklahoma&#8217;s five-year drought gave way to a <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/08\/20\/godzilla-el-nino-has-oklahoma-farmers-excited-but-guarded\/\" target=\"_blank\">powerful El Ni\u00f1o <\/a>that&#8217;s been bringing strong storm systems through the state since May 2015.<!--more--><\/p><p>Drought may be gone, but tourism is vital to the economy of northeast Oklahoma, and popular resort areas along the Illinois River near Tahlequah will certainly take a big hit after record flooding inundated them over the weekend.<\/p><p>Tulsa&#8217;s KOTV reports the Christmas weekend flood breaks a high water record set in 1950s on the Illinois River. <a title=\"KOTVlink\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newson6.com\/story\/30842541\/historic-flooding-delivers-tough-blow-to-illinois-river-resort\" target=\"_blank\">Reporter Tess Maune talked with Eric Stephens<\/a>, owner of War Eagle Resort, which offers bunk houses and canoe rentals to the thousands of visitors who come here to float the river each weekend during the summer.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cSee the War Eagle sign, floating right here? \u201cThat&#8217;s actually screwed to my front porch,\u201d he said. \u201cI was born out here. I&#8217;ve lived out here 30 years and never before have I seen anything like this. It&#8217;s pretty crazy.\u201d<\/p><p>Stephens\u2019 family opened War Ear Resort in the 70s and they&#8217;ve been building it into a big business on the Illinois River ever since &#8211; with canoes, rafts and cabins, many of which are now under water.<\/p><p>\u201cBuilt it from nothing; it&#8217;s kind of tough to see,\u201d Stephens said.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>And the <em>Tulsa World<\/em>&#8216;s <a title=\"TulsaWorldLink\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tulsaworld.com\/news\/state\/flooding-devastates-stretch-along-illinois-river-near-tahlequah\/article_3b7493e3-9a1e-5b30-809e-3be8990c4a8f.html\" target=\"_blank\">Corey Jones talked with a property manager for Rivercane Resort<\/a>:<\/p>\n<div>\n<blockquote><p>Flooding ravaged the property, including four cabins, a barbecue joint, an office and several other structures. A large storage building was mostly under water.<\/p><p>Anthony Boyd, a resort property manager, estimated that there could be a few million dollars\u2019 worth of damage, but the extent is difficult to pinpoint until the property can be inspected. Boyd said it likely will take a few weeks to determine what is salvageable and what will be knocked down to start anew.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div><p>Flooding has impacted the area since the spring. When StateImpact visited for a story in May 2015, resort owners were hard at work repairing damaged river access points. At the annual Oklahoma Governor&#8217;s Water Conference in November, <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/12\/04\/drought-gone-but-not-forgotten-at-annual-oklahoma-governors-water-conference\/\">State Climatologist Gary McManus put credit for the drought&#8217;s end \u2014 and blame for much of the flooding<\/a> \u2014 on what&#8217;s being called &#8216;Godzilla El Ni\u00f1o.&#8217;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flooding December 26-28 caps off a year that saw the Illinois River damaged by extreme rainfall time after time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[644,586,48,620,427],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25830"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25851,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25830\/revisions\/25851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}