Lake Lure’s Washburn Marina is open once again, after being destroyed in Tropical Storm Helene.
A “floating boardwalk” on pontoons now connects the marina and nearby Morse Park to the main recreation beach in the Rutherford County vacation and tourist town of 1,400.
“We’ve made huge strides,” Town of Lake Lure spokesperson Laura Krejci told the Hendersonville Times-News July 24. “It’s an enormous milestone for the town.” She recalled boats from the marina littering Morse Park after the storm, deposited there by receding floodwaters.
There’s still work to be done on the marina, with its more than 200 spots to tie up boats, which had a soft opening ahead of the weekend of July 18.
The lake was mostly drained for more than a year for debris removal and repairs to the century-old dam. The lake first reopened for limited recreation in April and fully reopened by Memorial Day, the Times-News previously reported.
Lake Lure received $1.8 million from FEMA in January to rebuild the marina and make it more resilient against potential future disasters, the Times-News previously reported.
There’s still work to be done on the marina, with its more than 200 spots to tie up boats, which had a soft opening ahead of the weekend of July 18.
A gas station for boats at the marina is on track to be completed with a ribbon cutting likely sometime in August, Krejci said.
The boat ramp will need to be closed for a few days after that project begins.
Until now, boaters have had to bring their boats to and from the lake on trailers and they continue to need to bring gasoline in cans.
Next will come a temporary building at the marina to house an office for boat tours, Krejci said. The town is also building more “courtesy docks,” places where boaters can park for free for a couple of hours to eat lunch in town, for instance.
Income from renting boat slips at the marina makes up an important source of the town’s revenue. With the docks out of commission, that money hadn’t been coming in.
Before Helene, boat slip rentals made up around 3.25% of the town’s general fund budget of $9.3 million in Fiscal Year 2025, the Times-News previously reported.
“Being able to get those people back on the water is really important,” Krejci said.
Reporting by George Fabe Russell, Hendersonville Times-News / Hendersonville Times-News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
