On Saturday morning, workers brought ashore a hot tub washed into Vallecito Reservoir by torrential rain and flooding.
A video on the Facebook group Explore Vallecito showed the hot tub, adorned with an American flag, being winched onto a trailer and pulled from the water.
“We met down at the Marina at around 9 a.m., took the Zodiac out and we came back around 11ish,” Rob Hossler, one of the rescuers, said in an email to The Durango Herald. “The hot tub was out of the water around 11:30.”
It seemed the gales of November arrived early in Vallecito, and what some are calling the “S.S. Tubbie” was ripped from its foundations and swept into the lake by rushing floodwaters.
For nearly a week, the hot tub floated in Vallecito Reservoir after being pummeled by the storm.
Yet, unlike the “Edmund Fitzgerald” or the “Titanic,” this intrepid Jacuzzi remained afloat and refused to sink.
Hossler and other members of Explore Vallecito said following the fate of the “S.S. Tubbie” was their way of injecting some humor into an otherwise grim situation.
“We enjoyed keeping everyone informed of the status of the hot tub,” Hossler said. “It was a moment of levity in a bad situation for the community.”
Ladies and gentlemen, the hot tub – and the community of Vallecito – are indomitable.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
