Dollywood faced major flooding Sunday, as a downpour of rain moved over Pigeon Forge and set up shop for hours. That didn’t stop crews from getting the park back open by Monday, however.
Dollywood’s vice president of marketing, Pete Owens, said the cleanup took less than half a day of overnight work.“Literally in less than 12 hours the maintenance was able to go through, repair a section in the parking lot and clean this entire park up,” Owens said.
He added that the rainstorm was not a common event and is something the city isn’t really equipped to handle.“That’s a 100 year flood and an act of God,” he said. “The infrastructure here and in the city of Pigeon Forge had no way to be able to handle that much water in that short of time.”Only one person got hurt Sunday, and the injury was minor, park representatives said. Even so, the weather prompted emergency crews to respond.
“We have an emergency operations plan, and that went into effect last night,” Owens said. “The police and the fire department from Pigeon Forge responded and assisted and guiding guests out to their cars.”Several guests told WVLT News it took them hours to leave the park, once they knew how serious the situation was. They also praised crews for helping keep them safe.
