SAN ANTONIO – A part of the San Antonio River has been temporarily drained since Sunday to allow city crews to clean debris and sediment from the riverbed.
Crews will continue working on the river through Monday, Jan. 19, as part of the River Walk Maintenance Program.
But staffers at some businesses along the San Antonio River Walk said the sight took some tourists by surprise, as they had been hoping to see the river.
Penni Cummings, manager of the Five and Dime General Store located in the midst of the iconic tourist destination, said visitors asked about the drained river.
“We had a couple this morning who was asking about why it was like drained or whatever,” Cummings said. “They said that they were going to take the riverboat ride Sunday, but they were like, ‘No, we’ll just take it tomorrow,’ and then they came and they’re like, ‘What the heck? It’s just gone.’”
Lauren Yanez, assistant manager at The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, said that the river drainage can affect business.
“We’re going to be slow all weekend, probably till Monday,” Yanez said.
She recounted that in the past, there had been a weekend when sales had briefly dropped by almost 50%.
Yanez said she suspected that this scheduled maintenance project may be affecting the work hours of restaurant wait-staff.
“You see all the servers, you just see them all leaving,” she said.
Cummings said she and her staff knew nothing about the drainage and were just as surprised to find the water gone when she arrived at work Monday morning.
When asked about the other possible ripple effect of the low river level, loss of foot traffic, Cummings did not make that correlation.
“January is a slow month anyway, so it’s kind of hard to tell, you know, so I don’t really know,” she said.
Yanez said the good thing is that when the river’s water level rises again to its regular level by next Monday, so should business.
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