Big Bear Lake, CA, July 10, 2014 – The lake level is about 9 1/2 feet down this week, and according to the Municipal Water District, the number of boats on the water was down over July 4th, compared to past years. Despite Independence Day falling on a Friday, there were only 349 vessels counted after 3pm. By comparison, there were 996 counted on July 4th in 1996 and 1,000 in 2009. The rest of the 2014 holiday weekend showed the same trend, with 364 boats on Saturday and 322 on Sunday. But the low numbers might have contributed to the good safety record over the three-day period: there were no citations or accidents.
Mike Stephenson, Interim General Manager at the MWD through October, said, “As long as no one gets hurt we feel like we had a successful weekend.
And if vacationers weren’t making it out to the lake in droves, there were still plenty of them in the valley. Rebecca Hrabia of the Big Bear Visitors Bureau reports that the 800-900 units of available lodging were sold out, and that their website continued its average annual gain of 10%.
