Local residents are up in arms over plans to build a waterslide coaster on Georgia’s Lake Lanier, which has a notoriously tragic past.
The ride is part of the new Fins Up Water Park in Margaritaville on the Lake Lanier Islands, opening May 4th. According to the website.
The waterslide coaster, known as “Apocalypso,” will “redefine underwater thrills,” the park’s website promises.
Officials attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the vehicle on Wednesday. WSB TV reported.
According to the magazine, Apocalypso will have the largest “blastelango drop” in the United States, with uphill and downhill speeds of about 30 miles per hour.
But online commenters were quick to condemn the construction, citing the popular lake’s disturbing backstory.
“Water slide park on Lake Lanier?!” Go to hell.” someone wrote to X.
The popular lake, located northeast of Atlanta, was built in the early 1900s on top of what was once a thriving black community, Yahoo News reported.
The town, known as Oscarville, was devastated in 1912 when residents were forced to flee after the murder of an 18-year-old white woman, the paper said.
Three young black men from the area were accused of the attack and lynched despite a lack of evidence.
In 1956, the town’s ruins, including buildings and graveyards, were flooded to form the lake.
“You don’t have to believe in ghosts to know that a place like Lake Lanier is haunted,” Mark Huddle, a professor at the University of Georgia and State University, told Yahoo News about the site.
“What we will never forget is that this is where the dark and bloody struggle over race relations in America unfolded in horrific ways,” he explained.
Social media users agreed with Huddle’s assessment.
“Lake Lanier shouldn’t be a tourist destination. It’s very disrespectful to the history of the place.” One person I wrote to X Reactions to news articles about waterslides.
“In a perfect world this would be a sacred place. We would never allow that to happen,” said another.
More recently, Lake Lanier’s tragic reputation has come in the form of dozens of drownings and several unusual electrocution incidents.
Approximately 216 people died in the lake from 1994 to 2022. According to data from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources..
In just one week in September 2023, three people died at the lake.
“Don’t people always die there?” An X user wrote One person called the project “a horror movie waiting to happen.”
Still another called Lake Lanier “that serial killer lake,” and a fourth posted a photo of the Grim Reaper sitting at a lifeguard stand with the caption “Lifeguard on duty.”
TikTok influencer Patrick Cloud joined the discussion on his own account.
“It has some ghostly history because it used to be a thriving black community. And they said, what if we flooded it and made it a lake instead?” he said in the video.
“That’s what they did. And now there are hundreds of people dying there. And now they’re like, do you know what’s going to be drugs here? Waterslides!” He can’t believe it. I shouted.
“If you’re planning on going here, you’re probably either crazy, completely stupid, or extremely racist, or all three,” he said. opined.
