Homeowners see Optimist Lake completely emptya

http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/local_news/mobile_county/Optimist-Lake-now-completely-empty

Matt Barrentine

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - A lake in West Mobile has disappeared. Ironically it's vanishing act was the result of record rainfall that drained Optimist's lake and flooded two homes in the process.
Now neighbors off Cody road want the lake back and the drainage problem, caused by an undermined dam, solved for good.
Completely empty...?
Before last week's heavy rains, Optimist Lake was a pretty little lake surrounded by homes off Cody road. Now it is a brown, muddy bog filled with trash and deadfish.
Marlon Brooks was looking over the damaged dam thattraps the water in the lake.
He said, "It looks like the water has undermined the dam out there and pretty much flooded out the woods out back out here."
The Bamboo Steakhouse restaurant sits on the lake. They just started having live music on their deck on Monday nights, but owner John Nguyen is worried if folks will show up tonight.
He told us, "It's going to hurt my business if I don't get this back. It's the biggest asset to our restaurant."
...Or absolutely not full?
The lake's dam had held up through decades of heavy downpours, but something happened this time that was different.
Doyle Taylor, who lives just north of the lake, showed us where a massive underground culvert blew out, spitting several massive pipes out of the ground and flooding two of his neighbors homes.
"We've done as much as we can do and this is what happened," Taylor said.
He said it was a problem they've been trying to get help with for a long time.
Residents said once the culvert blew out, it was like popping a cork out of a bottle and it sent a wave of water into the lake.
One resident said they spoke to others on the lake who said they saw a two-foot tall wave of water and debris come through the lake.
"But it was twenty foot on both sides as it came through. Almost like a miniature tsunami is what they were describing to us," said the resident.
Who is responsible for the repairs?
Residents feel the the culvert should have been county maintained.
The county today and they said there are some private land issues, but they have been assessing the problem to see if the the county can help the residents.
Still, the lake is privately owned, so Nguyen is taking the lead on getting the dam fixed. He'll have fundraisers at his restaurant to help foot the bill.
"This time we're trying to do it right," Nguyen said. "They didn't do it right back then, but now where trying to do it the best way we can."
Nguyen says engineers will look at the dam over the next couple of days. He expects the repairs to be quite expensive.
For now there's no lake, two flooded homes and a lot of pessimistic residents residing on what's left of Optimist Lake.
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