Wave Problem

Waves were pretty intense yesterday. I guess the camera won't do it justice. The only way is to experience it. The seawall at the point where I took the pictures is 12'. Waves were splashing over the seawall. The two massive breakwater docks broke in half yesterday. A couple of waves actually topped the breakwater and broke the docks. We are planning to put a breakwater out a 100' from the breakwater docks if we can get permission from the regulator. The breakwater will be full of baffles to reduce the power of the waves. This is the same breakwater used to protect the Great Lakes Naval Station from the huge waves they get from the ore carriers. The cost will be between $675k and $1.25 million. A company rep is coming next week to survey the situation and decided how big a breakwater and pricing. Each breakwater is custom built and could not be put in until next year. The breakwater would be 800' long. I've seen Kentucky Lake on holidays and it is bad. But, it is a wider lake and the waves can dissipate some. At LOZ, the waves bounce from bluff wall to bluff wall from every boat that passes. Eventually, 2 waves will meet head on and produce a huge wave. These are the ones that hurt people. Most of the power of a wave is underwater and when two waves collide, they force the water up into these monsters. They can appear from seemingly calm water and these are called rouge waves. We saw a bassboat hit a rouge that formed in front of the boat. The guy never had a chance to back off the throttle and the bb went airborne. We went to help. When we got there, the driver had a death grip on the wheel and was in schock. The passenger was lying in the bottom of the boat. All rods, tackle, troller were gone to the bottom of the lake. As Harold Allen once told me, "If you can drive a bassboat at Lake of the Ozarks, you can drive any lake in the country."