Volunteers Clean Up Flood-Damaged Caves

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By Katie Wiedemann

Story Created: Jul 9, 2007 at 7:04 PM CST

Story Updated: Jul 9, 2007 at 9:05 PM CST

A flood damaged state park is being repaired by a group of volunteers. Last week's rainstorms flooded Maquoketa Caves State Park.

The Jackson County attraction is seven miles west of Maquoketa. Thousands of visitors tour the caves each summer. Now, a group of Americorps workers are cleaning up the mess.

Visitors can once again walk the trails, but some of the caves are still off limits.

The damage is worse than anyone expected. Debris now fills up the entire Dancehall Cave.

AmeriCorps Volunteer Sue Hollice said, "We've got to pull all of the debris out of that cave and there is quite a bit down there."

But first the volunteers are re-building an access road to the cave.

Volunteer Eric Earnhardt said, "We're trying to create a road right now so we can get some machinery down here to help us move that."

The AmeriCorps group hails from all over the country. They've come together to correct the problems in this cave as quickly as possible.
The trip is somewhat of honeymoon for newlyweds Eric and Amber Earnhardt.

Eric said, "After our wedding on November 4th. We went on a honeymoon and two weeks later we shipped out to Iowa and we're living out of what we can fit in our Red Ford Focus."

They are living simply, on a mission, so visitors can enjoy this cave once again.

The group plans to work to clean up the cave for the next eight days.

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