A houseboat that was long-abandoned on Lake Lanier was finally removed from the water Thursday morning after officials spent two days attempting to refloat it.
Jennifer Flowers, executive director of the Lake Lanier Association, said the removal of the “The Beast,” a steel bottom houseboat, took weeks of planning. Previous attempts to remove the boat over the summer were unsuccessful.
Flowers said the removal process was a collaboration between the Lake Lanier Association, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and TowBoat US.
“TowBoat is having to add these inflatable bags underneath this houseboat, the bottom is completely gone from it, it’s rusted out,” Flowers said Tuesday at the beginning of the removal process.
The Beast was finally refloated Wednesday afternoon, but Flowers said the fun did not end there. A heavy thunderstorm moved through the region as the team attempted to move the boat to the Balus Creek boat ramp for final removal. The Beast was then hauled away Thursday morning.
“It just really lived up to how hard this one was, and just ‘The Beast,’ in general, but it’s off the water now,” Flowers said.
Flowers said abandoned boats bring about a variety of different safety hazards for both Lake Lanier and those using Lake Lanier, prompting the need for their removal.
“If they were to sink further and break apart, or just kind of be underneath the water, people could jump in and not know they’re there,” Flowers said. “They’re also a water quality hazard. Anything that you can find in a house is essentially in this boat, there’s a refrigerator, there would have been battery acid, gas and oil.”
The Beast is the tenth houseboat removal that the Lake Lanier Association has been involved in. Flowers said this specific boat was chosen after the Corps of Engineers received funding and then identified a top ten list of boats that should be removed from the lake. It had been abandoned for about five years in a cove near Browns Bridge.
Flowers said there are two more houseboat removals planned for the near future.
“So, we have the Chestatee Ghost Boat, which is really far up the Chestatee River, almost right where it becomes the lake,” Flowers said. “The other one that we have is named The Shadow because it has eluded us for numerous years … it’s in this tiny little finger on the back of a cove.”
