Businesses Near Lake Tenkiller Still Seeing Flooding Problems

COOKSON, KOTV -- Businesses along Lake Tenkiller are still dealing with flooding issues. They say despite the water level being more than 30 feet above normal - they are still open open for business. Marinas say they're taking a financial beating from the

Monday, July 1st 2019, 7:45 pm

By: Erick Payne

COOKSON, KOTV -- Businesses along Lake Tenkiller are still dealing with flooding issues.

They say despite the water level being more than 30 feet above normal they are still open for business.

Marinas say they're taking a financial beating from the flooding since Memorial Day. They're used to high water levels like this but it doesn't usually happen in the summer.

Brandi Little is the owner of Sixshooter Marina and Resort. She says people have heard because of the high water, you can't get on the lake to enjoy the water.

"You can't close a public lake," Little said. "The most things that have affected people are the ability to get on the water."

At their marina, the water is up 30 feet over their parking lot here. You can still see some of the lots of street lights peeking above the surface.

"It was a really slow flood so most people didn't even realize it was even going on until it started impacting campgrounds and boat ramps and such," Little said.

Little says they just finished repairing the marina after a tornado tore through the area late last year. They were only open a few weeks before the flooding started.

"You think summers coming and you'll be able to make up the financial burden from the tornado, and oh no, we're not going to make that up," Little said.

Boat owners who have slips at Lake Tenkiller marinas can still use the lake as usual. That's the case across the lake at burnt cabin marina. Dock Manager Bryce Lubbers says apart from some boat ramps being closed, they're operating like they always do.

"I wish people would know it is open, just getting on the lake is a little difficult," Lubbers said. "We're used to 10 foot just for a short period of time, we're not used to this 30 foot, this is definitely impacting a lot of people."

It's a problem both say needs to end soon, so they can go back to making money.

"You really only have about 5 months to make your money since you're a seasonal business," Little said.

They tell me they're hoping things will start picking up again after this week.

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