This past Friday we went camping at the Jellystone Park @ Lazy River in Gardiner New York which is located right on the Wallkill River. The area had some heavy thunderstorms on and off throughout the day. The river was rising a little and no one seemed concerned. We had been there before when the owners as a precaution evacuated all riverfront sites based on the weather forecasts.
This time without warning, two dams upstream in Walden and Wallkill suddenly without any warnings released large amounts of water to take pressure off the dams. The CG is about 6-7 miles from the Wallkill Dam resulting in the river to un-expectly rise from a height in the morning of about 2.5 feet to over 11 feet at about 4pm. Once the river came over the banks of the CG, it took about an hour for the water to get about 2.5 feet deep in the riverfront sites.
There were a little more than 25 fifth wheels and TTs setup on the riverfront sites which were mostly seasonals. Most owners were there and some were not.
Nearly everyone in the CG jumped into action helping move the 25+ trailers and all of the camping gear off the riverfront sites. Seasonal and weekend campers all strangers, working together to clear out the sites. We were in almost waist deep water moving trailers, camping gear, trying to catch gear floating all over and carrying pets out of RVs that were surrounded by water.
I was truly impressed with the sense of community in this CG among all of the campers, mostly strangers just jumping in to help fellow campers in need.
Wallkill River USGS Chart
2012 Ram 2500 Big Horn Crew Cab 8' box
5.7 Hemi, 4x4, 4.10
2015 Jayco Eagle 284BHBE
