I can feel for the people on the prairies and in Quebec who have been dealing with flooding recently because we had our own issues with the Bow River recently here at Cottonwood.
It came close to spilling its banks at one point when it was coming up about an inch-and-a-half per hour, forcing us to take some measures to protect ourselves.
We took everything out of the basement and moved members’ clubs and inventory up and we took the carts out of the cart barn because water was sneaking in behind.
The river crested about two in the morning and between seven and 10 p.m., it came up about two-and-a-half feet and we were getting very concerned, but from 10 to two, it stayed pretty much the same.
As far as the golf course goes, it came pretty close to coming up over the eighth hole, but it went back down There’s still a lot of snow in the mountains, with more to come down, we’ve had rain and they’re releasing water from up above the dam.
You have to take precautions and the biggest thing for me is making sure that people stay the heck away from the river. I had three guys wanting to go fishing, even though there was an advisory that they weren’t even supposed to be going near the river.
We had our starters telling people to not go near it on eight and nine and if they hit their ball over there, forget about it.
It can happen so fast and the area that would be worst hit is our short game area, but normally for it to spill its banks here, downtown Calgary would have to be flooding, as well, but it isn’t without precedent.
In mid-June of 2005, we took six or seven inches of water in the basement. We’ve got the pumps in there, but they can only do so much, which is why we have to be ready to take precautions.
We were pretty lucky back in ’05 because there wasn’t a lot of silt in it and that chokes your grass, but you have to be prepared with a plan to react to natural forces, whatever they may be, that threaten to interrupt business and do damage to your operation.
