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Dam Break Leaves Team With No Place to Practice
Updated: Friday, 23 Jul 2010, 5:22 PM MST
Published : Friday, 23 Jul 2010, 5:22 PM MST
TEMPE - Tempe Town Lake is used by different rowing teams around the valley, from high schools to the men and women's teams at Arizona State University.
Since the dam broke July 20, they'll be off the water until at least the beginning of November or when the repairs are made.
One coach talked to FOX 10 about what to do next.
Emily Burkett has the same reaction as a lot of people when they see the now empty Tempe Town Lake for the first time.
"..to see all the mud..you're like..I guess it is a little bit worse than what I thought it was going to be," she says.
Burkett is a rowing coach for ASU and the city of Tempe. Before the dam broke, she was at the lake nearly every day with her teams. In fact, she was on the lake coaching, just hours before the dam on the west end of the lake burst open.
"..if had happened two hours earlier, that would have been us being swept out to the dam," Burkett said.
Now with no place to practice, recruiting enough rowers for the upcoming year is going to be a real challenge.
"Campus is so close so when we have our recruiting events, it's very easy to say, oh look, the lake's right over there, no big deal. But now to say, hey, we're going to be working out on land for two months and then maybe getting back on November first?"
Burkett says the reality is there may not be a rowing team this year. "It's very possible..just because they might not have enough people."
She goes on to say it would be too expensive to have the rowing team haul all of their boats and equipment to lakes around the valley for practice, so they'll probably have to stay on land until the lake is filled again.
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