ROGERS, Ark. — The popular tourist destination the War Eagle Cavern on Beaver Lake has been closed for the past three weeks while they pick up the pieces from the recent Benton County storms.
"I got a call from a manager here at about 530 in the morning, which was a little unusual, and says, we had a problem" said Dennis Boyer, the owner of the Cavern. "It was unbelievable. Pictures of it just doesn't do it justice."
Their biggest problem was fallen trees which made the surrounding trails unwalkable. One of their buildings saw significant damage. It was overall unsafe to have visitors.
"Our Mystery House took a big hit. There was a lot of fencing obliterated," Boyer said.
"20 days later, we have been removing trees. Some were 150-year-old, big oak trees just snapped. We'll get back to normal, but part of our grounds and some of the nature trails, we're going to have to get the rest of stuff real good before we dig into that," Boyer explained.
He says that the three weeks of being closed hit his business significantly, especially around Memorial Day weekend.
"We had Friday into Saturday, but we lost Sunday and Monday. Probably would have been $20,000 worth of business," Boyer said. "Our employees aren't getting paid. Now, during this time though, we have hired a number of our employees that are capable of wanting to work out here."
They rushed to get the place cleaned up before losing any more peak summer travelers.
"Weekends like that are always key weekends, but especially summertime, June, July, August. Those are our primary months. So that's why we really have rushed to try and get this open," Boyer said.
He said visitors will still see some debris and the cavern might look a little bare with less trees now, but they're excited to get back up and running again.
"We're going to be months before the whole place is cleaned up again. But at this point, we feel that we can open and we can give the customer a very good tour," Boyer said. "We're pretty much 95% operational out here. So if you want to see what a tornado has done to the nature areas out here."
Out of all attractions at War Eagle Cavern, Boyer said on the bright side, the famous cave remains untouched from weather.
"As you're walking down there, you won't suspect a thing. Nothing happened underground," Boyer said.
War Eagle Cavern is open seven days a week from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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