KINGSTON SPRINGS, Tenn. (WTVF) — The sun is out, the kayaks are stacked. It should be a great day out on the water — until you actually see the water on the Harpeth River. "You could see tree trunks floating down the river," David Spears, owner of Tip-A-Canoe in Kingston Springs said.
As the owner, it's up to David to make the call if they will rent out canoes and kayaks or not. "I basically have to be a weatherman, myself," he said with a chuckle.
All this week, his decision has been the same: because the Harpeth River is still swollen from this weekend's storms, it's still not safe. "The water’s moving faster, there can be debris in the water. There can also be trees down places they weren’t before," Spears said.
While NewsChannel 5 was interviewing Spears, we spotted a group wanting to float the Harpeth with pool floats. Spears went over and talked the group out of it. "I definitely wouldn’t go down the river today like in a pool float," he said. "You can’t control yourself in a tube."
A week of closure for his business is one thing. But Spears says this has been the hardest year for his business since his father found it almost 50 years ago. "Here we are, at the end of May, and we’ve only been able to be open 6 days all year," Spears said.
This spring, the water was too low. This month, the water has been too high. "At this point, we’ve been open less days than we were opened in 2020 from the pandemic," Spears lamented.
Unfortunately, if customers can't be out on the river, he doesn't need employees to come in either, which could pose yet another problem. "Starting to get worried we haven’t had enough hours for them," he said.
He's hopeful he can hold onto them until Mother Nature stops holding out on the forecast. "I can’t predict the weather so I don’t know what else to tell them," Spears said.
In the meantime, David's kayaks will remain stacked until the nice weather consistently comes back. "If we don’t get rain on Saturday like they’re forecasting we might right now, things probably will be fine," he said.
David isn't the only river outfitter lamenting the weather. Rentals along the Red, Duck, and Caney Fork Rivers have also had to close recently due to high water.
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
