LAKEPORT, Calif. – After nearly two weeks of dealing with Lakeport’s flood emergency, the city of Lakeport Emergency Operations Center was closed on Friday evening, as the city prepares to move into its recovery response mode.

The city issued a Friday alert that announced the center’s closure, but also reported that the information line at 707-263-5614 will remain active.

The line won’t be regularly staffed by a city employee but staff will routinely check messages and return calls during business hours, the city’s administration reported.

The Emergency Operations Center was activated on Feb. 20, the same day that the city issued mandatory evacuations for the Esplanade Street neighborhood and three lakeside trailer parks, Aqua Village, Lucky Four and Will-O-Point, as Lake County News has reported.

Those mandatory evacuations for a reported 225 city residents remain in place, according to Public Works Director Doug Grider, the Emergency Operations Center’s duty officer on Friday.

The state Department of Housing and Community Development also has red-tagged all 41 residences in Will-O-Point, city officials reported at a community meeting this week. An evacuation shelter remains in place at the Lakeport Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1111 Park Way.

For nearly two weeks, city staff has been working 14- to 16-hour days in response to the emergency, as well a dealing with issues that extend back to January’s storms, Grider said.

“Everybody’s about exhausted,” he said.

Thanks to a week of mostly dry, sunny days, Clear Lake’s flood waters are steadily receding, with the lake level late Friday at around the 9.5-foot Rumsey level. Flood stage is 9 feet Rumsey and above.

Grider said that the Emergency Operations Center protocol calls for closing once the emergency portion – which included the need to evacuate people out of harm’s way – is over.

With the emergency threat to the lives of city residents past, the city’s leadership is hoping to start the cleanup and recovery process, he said.

“Now we’re going to be looking at more longterm decisions,” he said.

Grider said city staffers are conducting damage assessments daily, however, with so many roadways and other areas – like Library Park – still under water, they don’t yet have a full picture of the extent of the flooding damage.

He said his No. 1 priority is to reopen the portion of Lakeshore Boulevard from Giselman to Lange, but he already knows that area has damage, and determining just how much will require an examination with special engineering equipment.

Esplanade also is going to be underwater for awhile. “We have no idea what our damage is going to be on Esplanade,” Grider said.

Another concern for Grider on Friday was the forecast of as much as 2 inches of rain over the weekend and winds coming from the east.

“That’s when we get hit the worst at the park,” he said, referring to Library Park, which was battered by such winds late last month.

Rather, he’s hoping for sunshine and no wind so the lake can continue to go down.

“If the weatherman was ever wrong, this is the weekend,” Grider said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.