MENTONE, AL—
Floodwaters are rising at DeSoto Falls because of the recent rain. Cynthia Stinson, a freelance photographer in Mentone, saw firsthand the sacrifice many boat owners are making to save part of their riverfront property.Stinson captured photos of a pontoon boat going over the falls on Monday. She actually witnessed three boats going over the falls on Monday, but her camera faltered when the first two fell into the water below.
"I knew the [pontoon] boat was coming, so I had tried to take photographs of boats that had gone over previously, but the mist was so bad that my camera lens would not do it. So, the third one, I took my camera bag strap and tied it here, because the water was running -- it was up to my knees."
Little River leads up to DeSoto Falls. Stinson says people who live on the river, which runs along Highway 117 in DeKalb County, have seen their boats take on so much water in the last few days that the boats threaten to pull private docks away. Some owners have made the tough decision to cut their boats free.
In other cases, people have gone to their docks to find their boats already gone; the ropes holding them had broken. That was the case for Roland Hendon, the owner of the pontoon boat in Stinson's photos. He came to DeSoto Falls late Monday afternoon and recognized the boat when he looked at the pictures on Stinson's camera.
"Is that your boat?" someone asked Hendon. "Yeah, that's it, because you can see the chairs are on it," he replied.
It appears Hendon's boat floated off his dock on its own, or the rope snapped from the heavy weight of the water.
"When I got home this afternoon, my boat was missing, so I walked a little ways down the road looking for it, and it just happened you were here with the picture," Hendon said.
"We've had the boat for quite a while, and I was really attached to it, and the family liked to go up in there. I usually don't take it out of the river until the leaves change, in the fall, so I guess we'll watch the leaves from the road this year," Hendon went on to say. "We had a lot of good times on the boat."
Stinson, who is also general manager and innkeeper of the Mentone Inn Bed & Breakfast, captured the photos Monday from the steps that lead to the falls, which are also mostly under water. Stinson used her belt to tie herself to the railing to take these photos. She had on hip waders, and said while she took the pictures, the water rose another three feet.
