Out and about in Asheville - Chapter something - The John B Lewis flood
What happened and things Removing the silt pile The John B Lewis soccer complex (known to the soccer crowd as "JBL") is a couple of miles from here - something like 6 acres of soccer fields covered in astroturf along with the associated buildings, never quite enough parking space and so on. About a year ago the Swannanoa River flooded it, dumping a fairly large amount of silt on it - I didn't realise how much until today. The picture on the right shows a digger on top of about half the pile. The fields were last laid in June 2017 at a cost of a million and a half or thereabouts after another flood so the local soccer association (ABYSA) was understandably reluctant to do the whole thing again. JBL was donated to ABYSA by the Lewis family about 20 years ago as a memorial to their soccer playing son. It is in an area prone to flooding but does an immense service to the upmarket shopping area at Biltmore Village by grabbing a load of the...