Crooked Tree Flooding Shuts Down Tourism: Hotels Cancel Bookings Amid Rising Waters

Moving further north to Crooked Tree Village, we can tell you that the causeway is already covered with flood waters.  It is not of historical proportions but residents there are being cautious as the village has been known to take in massive amounts of water.  Despite not reaching historical heights, the flooding has been impacting the village’s tourism sector as hotels are now forced to close until the waters subside.  Bird’s Eye View Lodge is one such hotel that had to cancel over 20 reservations due to the flood. The hotel’s manager, Verna Samuels, says the water has risen as high as three feet in some areas.

Verna Samuels, Manager, Bird’s Eye View Lodge: “We are flooded. We have closed our business two days ago the 17th of November and since then every day we visit the lodge to see how things are going and everyday the water is rising higher and today it actually went inside about maybe six inches in the whole building and outside it’s up to like all the way up to your thigh which is about three our four feet right immediately outside our building, that’s what we’re experiencing right now. “

Reporter: Ma’am has this level of flooding ever impacted you guys before ? 

Verna Samuels, Manager, Bird’s Eye View Lodge: “Yes. It has. But this one it happened very fast. We were quite reluctant to evacuate but after talking with other owners, other partners we decided that we better do this now and we barely made it. We barely got through enough with enough time to get out before the water started coming really fast in our area right around the building.”

According to Samuels, the flooding has also impacted the village, including the causeway, and the other hotels along the river.

Verna Samuels, Manager, Bird’s Eye View Lodge: “Even the causeway is being flooded at this time. Today quite a few of the villagers had to cross their vehicle over on the other side because they won’t be able to do that later especially if it’s like a car or a low vehicle if they don’t do it today they won’t be able to get out on the other side by tomorrow. For the other hotels all the hotels along the shoreline like how we are at the shoreline they are also impacted because the Jakana Inn and Crooked Tree Lodge I know they had to close business even before we did because their road was flooded even though their business isn’t flooded their road is flooded and then one of the Jakana Owner even told me that his wife slipped and broke her ankle and I don’t want anything like that for us so we don’t want to go in the water too much but we had to go there today. So those two things I have to mention.”

The Chairman for Crooked Tree, George Tillett, will be on The Morning Show tomorrow.