MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Good luck getting out of the mud. The Mississippi River continues to plunge to historic lows and it’s causing a big, muddy problem at the Mud Island Marina.
As FOX13 found out, it certainly isn’t floating anyone’s boat.
The water level has gotten so low that some folks are calling it the Memphis Mud Yacht Club.
”That is what we have been calling it. If you want to take your boat out, bring your four-wheeler,” said Joe Weiss.
Weiss is the General Manager of the Memphis Yacht Club. He said there are more than a hundred boats stuck here. Some of them are stuck in up to six feet of mud.
The worry is that propeller shafts are being bent and damage may be done to the hulls of the boats. Some of them, he said, may not come unstuck when the water starts to rise because of the suction of the mud, and they may have to be pulled up and out with big mechanical winches.
”It’s one of those things that we’ll see. We hope not and we expect not. You’ll have to wait and see,” Weiss said
Since the water started dropping it has revealed bizarre things that people have trashed alongside the boats including a child’s rocking horse, a barbecue grill, a gas tank, a fire extinguisher and a piece of furniture that appears to be a lounge chair.
Ricky Hudson is doing work on the dock.
”It always gets low this time of year, but now it’s gotten a little lower,” Ricky Hudson said.
Weiss said the water dropped fast here, quicker than expected. It caught a lot of boat owners off guard.
”We tell people to move their boats one day and the next day it is in mud. So, they can’t get down here fast enough to move it.” Weiss said.
Download the FOX13 Memphis app to receive alerts from breaking news in your neighborhood.
Trending stories:
©2022 Cox Media Group