Buckaneer Park Mississippi Gulf Coast Swimming Pool
From the Biloxi Sun Herald:
WAVELAND -- Come Thursday at 10 a.m., the 460,000-gallon wave pool at Buccaneer State Park will be open for the first time since Hurricane Katrina heavily damaged the water park there in 2005.
At a news conference Tuesday at Buccaneer Bay water park, officials announced the $21 million park was ready to open.
Buccaneer Bay Director Stu Rayburn rode out Hurricane Katrina at the park and was there during the difficult recovery process following the storm. Work on the project began in 2006. Rayburn said the park, which opened in the mid-1970s, had been a big attraction in the area before the storm.
"Three and four generations have come here, so this place means a lot to them," he said.
Before it was a water park, the Buccaneer Bay site in western Waveland, known as Jackson Ridge, was a garbage dump. In 1972, a state legislative bill and a $20 million bond created the park, which featured Mississippi's first wave pool. Officials said the wave pool was the
first in the United States that was in a state park. The pool has eight kinds of waves. The water park also has two long water slides.
Buccaneer Bay will operate daily from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Admission prices are based on height -- $17 for anyone taller than four feet and $12 for anyone shorter than that. Buccaneer State Park, so named because it's believed the pirate Jean Lafitte once spent time in the area, sits on 398 acres and has 276 RV campsites plus tent campsites.
Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/06/11/4726913/buccanner-bay-will-make-waves.html#storylink=cpy
WAVELAND -- Come Thursday at 10 a.m., the 460,000-gallon wave pool at Buccaneer State Park will be open for the first time since Hurricane Katrina heavily damaged the water park there in 2005.
At a news conference Tuesday at Buccaneer Bay water park, officials announced the $21 million park was ready to open.
Buccaneer Bay Director Stu Rayburn rode out Hurricane Katrina at the park and was there during the difficult recovery process following the storm. Work on the project began in 2006. Rayburn said the park, which opened in the mid-1970s, had been a big attraction in the area before the storm.
"Three and four generations have come here, so this place means a lot to them," he said.
Before it was a water park, the Buccaneer Bay site in western Waveland, known as Jackson Ridge, was a garbage dump. In 1972, a state legislative bill and a $20 million bond created the park, which featured Mississippi's first wave pool. Officials said the wave pool was the
first in the United States that was in a state park. The pool has eight kinds of waves. The water park also has two long water slides.
Buccaneer Bay will operate daily from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Admission prices are based on height -- $17 for anyone taller than four feet and $12 for anyone shorter than that. Buccaneer State Park, so named because it's believed the pirate Jean Lafitte once spent time in the area, sits on 398 acres and has 276 RV campsites plus tent campsites.
Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/06/11/4726913/buccanner-bay-will-make-waves.html#storylink=cpy
