News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened day-use areas at Upper Cumberland lakes ahead of schedule Friday. This includes the picnic areas, the shelters and the swim areas at Center Hill, Cordell Hull and Dale Hollow Lakes. The original date to re-open these areas was June 15th.
Park Ranger Ashley Webster who oversees the day use areas and campgrounds at Cordell Hull said precautions are being taken to ensure the health and safety of visitors by cleaning restrooms according to CDC guidelines and also crowd-monitoring.
“All of our parks and recreation areas have a capacity,” Webster said, “We, as well as the sheriff’s department, our volunteers, our park attendants, we have a joint force to try to make sure that we regulate the number of people that come through especially when it’s busy. Not saying that we do that all the time, but when it’s busy it’s on our radar, we make sure we have staff in the needed areas to pretty much do crowd control.”
Once the parking areas are full, the attendants will not let anyone else enter until parking spaces are vacated. “We don’t want vegetation to be destroyed just trying to get to a beach,” Webster said, “We want people to be able to park safely. I know when you try to wiggle people in all sorts of directions and areas, that can lead to accidents, safety backing out with pedestrians, so we do and will try to regulate that to the best of our ability just so we don’t exceed our capacity.”
In addition to the swimming and picnic areas, Cordell Hull also has pavilions available for reservations for groups. These pavilions all have a 50 person or less capacity, with the exception of one. Webster said the one pavilion they have that has a 100 person capacity has been altered for reservations not to exceed more than 50 people, according to state guidelines to limit gatherings of more than fifty people. There is a contracted group that cleans and sanitizes these pavilions after use.
With an increase in visitors comes an increase in need to ensure safety. Webster said, “On or around water we encourage everyone to wear their life jacket. When I’m personally kayaking I have my life jacket on. Of course when I’m at work, I’m required to have my life jacket on. We just want everyone to be safe, courteous of others and we want to hopefully have a smooth recreation season and we’ll move forward from this point on.”
Webster said free-to-use, loaner life jacket areas will be available at all Cordell Hull beaches.
