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The Marietta High School rowing club is waiting for the new floats to arrive to replace the club's docks on the Muskingum River.
Communities in Morgan and Muskingum counties are still cleaning up debris from floods after slabs of ice clogged the river two weeks ago.
The river, for now is back to normal.
An exceptionally cold January froze all 100 miles of the Muskingum down to Marietta, an unusual but not unheard-of occurrence. When the ice broke up, it swept the rowing club's docks on the west bank at Marietta down the river and into the Ohio. Although club members launched a rescue they were forced back by moving islands of ice.
On Thursday, men's rowing coach Kindra Hecker said the club is well on the way to replacing the docks with the help of community supporters who responded to a fundraising campaign.
"Actually, we've had very generous donors," she said. "At a meeting Monday, we determined we had enough to order the floats. Our initial goal was $30,000 and we might surpass that a bit. We'll be able to make the docks a bit longer and add a ramp."
Hecker said one donor offered matching funds up to $10,000.
The floats will take two weeks to arrive, she said, and although the club's overall goal is to have the installation in place by April 7 to host a regatta, it would prefer to get the work finished sooner.
After the floats come in, she said, "it will all be building, volunteer labor and the weather."
The new dock will have some extra fortification after the January disaster, she said.
"It was kind of a fluke, it had been there for 20 years and that never happened," she said. "We're definitely going to secure it better, make it as tight as possible."
Significantly more damage occurred in Morgan and Muskingum counties, when a brief warm spell broke up the ice, which jammed and trapped water behind it.
"The ice is gone, but there's still a lot of debris onshore and in the river," said Jeff Jadwin, director of the Muskingum County Emergency Management Agency, on Thursday. "We had a lot of docks damaged or dragged away, homes flooded and cabins and campgrounds flooded."
The flood response kept Jadwin's agency, several township and volunteer fire departments, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the American Red Cross busy for several days, he said.
The Ohio Department of Transportation was worried the floating ice might damage bridges, he said, but that threat failed to materialize.
The river has returned to its normal level for this time of year, he said.
"I've been here all my life, and this has happened before," he said.
Downriver in Beverly, Jim Black, a longtime resident and former director of the Southeastern Ohio Port Authority, said the Beverly-Waterford area saw no damage from the cold spell.
"The river was up a little, but we haven't seen any problems at all," he said.
The AEP power plant four miles up the river had a somewhat mitigating effect, but the plant closed in 2015.
"Units one through four (of the plant) used the water for cooling," he said. "Now the river's back to somewhat normal, before the power plant."
The warming effect would prevent the water from freezing in the area of the plant, he said.
The last major freeze that caused problems, he said, was decades ago when ice dammed up at locks upriver.
"It can happen, I've seen it colder than this year," he said. "Mother Nature at its best."
At a glance
January weather
¯ Days in January with overnight lows less than freezing: 25.
¯ Days in January with daytime highs less than freezing: 13.
¯ Average daytime high for the month: 38.7.
¯ Average overnight low: 18.5.
¯ Average overall temperature: 28.6.
¯ Normal: 31.6.
Source: National Weather Service.