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< July/August 2002
	Hotline
Flooding Wreaks Havoc on Spring Festivals

Spring flooding that destroyed millions of dollars in property and took seven lives throughout the Southeast made for some stellar creeking, but was disruptive to several high-profile whitewater competitions. The worst flooding in 25 years displaced both the U.S. Freestyle Team Trials and the IR Triple Crown competitions from the Rock Island site on the Caney Fork River. While the site, which is dam controlled, normally sees flows of 3,500 to 5,000 cfs, the week before the trials the stretch was flowing up to 40,000 cfs and the lake below the playspot backed up and flooded the feature. Rather than turn the event into a flatwater rodeo, organizers moved the Team Trials to the Nolichucky River, four hours away. Jay Kincaid took the men’s competition and Dixie-Marie Pickett the women’s, heading a field of seven men, six women, nine juniors and three C-1ers who represented the U.S. at the pre-worlds in Austria.

A few days later the lake had drained and the IR Triple Crown was set to take place when an hour of hard rain set in the night before the event. "Apparently the Caney Fork has a huge drainage," says event organizer Spencer Cooke. "The dam managers were forced to open the overflow the next morning and within an hour what was a hole with a three-foot foam pile swelled to one with a seven-foot foam pile." Competitors had been training at the playspot all morning, but one by one they got out of the water—all except paddling legends Eric Jackson, Steve Fischer and, surprisingly, 16-year-old Chris Gragtmans. "There was a massive undercut on river left in the outwash of the hole," says Cooke. "No one else wanted to risk it. They were pulling some pretty massive moves." Eventually, organizers moved the Triple Crown to the Nolichucky as well, where Andre Spino-Smith took the men’s pro class and Brooke Winger defended her women’s crown.

U.S. Team Trials