![]() ![]() We ran up to the visitor center and pulled up the radar map. Why was the water rising when the sky was clear? Another tour guide and I looked at each other confused. Then, the river started to change color, the bluehole darkened, turned murky, then brown and the water started to rise. The morning went normally, the sky was blue, with whisps and tufts of cotton blowing by, it was warm and humid, but there was no sense of impending doom. I came to work much more relaxed this time. That day the forecast called for a mere 30% chance of scattered storms. Once all the equipment was put away to wait for calmer water we went home, there would be no more tours that day.Īnother year, a little later in the season, the water had again been running high, but the forecast gave us a better chance. The cave doesn’t flood instantly, so we drove one of the boats to the back of the tour area, pulled the few spillway boards from the dam to get the water as low as possible, then proceeded to use our hoist to get the boats out of the cave. There was no doubt in any of our minds that the cave was going to flood.Įven during a major storm event, there is time to make preparations. Then, as if someone had tipped over a giant bucket, the deluge of rain came pouring down. The creaking of the branches as they bent and arched was a little nerve wracking, so I moved under the forty foot thick limestone roof of the cave. ![]() ![]() I didn’t initially feel the wind, because I was down in the valley, but I could hear it and I could see the tops of the tallest trees whipping back and forth. The first few tours ran normally, but then it started. So I grabbed my rain jacket, and some clothes that had already been basically ruined crawling around in Lost River Cave. This morning, there was a front coming through bringing with it thunder, lightning, and heavy downpours. Springtime in Kentucky is thunderstorm season and thunderstorm season at Lost River Cave can lead to flooding of the cave. Every morning when I got up I would check the weather forecast for that day’s chances for rain. It was springtime and the water at Lost River Cave had been running a little high. ![]()
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