SLOAN, IA -
The Missouri River affected a lot of lives and stopped a lot of projects last summer, but it couldn't stop WinnaVegas.
It's official, Thursday that casino becomes a casino resort, with the grand opening of its new hotel.
After being in the works for more than a decade the Missouri River flooding pushed the hotel back by almost six months.
But now, folks with WinnaVegas say it's on its way to becoming a vacation destination.
At WinnaVegas Thursday there was reason to celebrate: the casino's new hotel is now open for business.
"We've been trying to do a major renovation and to add a hotel on for at least 10 years," said John Blackhawk, a Chairman with the Winnebago Tribe at a press conference Thursday.
You'll find flat screen TV's in the 78 rooms, but that's not all the $13 million project brought to town.
The new hotel adds nearly 50 new employees.
"It feels really good to have this hotel up," said WinnaVegas employee Jackie Tripp. "It's been a long time coming."
If you do decide to come and stay, it's never a bad idea to hit the pool.
It might remind you of a flooded summer that halted construction on this hotel for months, but then again, it might remind of the ducks that saved the day.
"Those ducks, they were kind of quacky as we called them," said Tripp.
Those duck boats were a blessing for the casino.
They helped get gamblers to their games after a flooding Missouri River forced the casino to close shop for 40 days last summer.
"At first we didn't know," said Tripp. "The newscasts, we were consistently watching newscasts to see how high the river was going to go as they were expelling more and more water at the dam, and it was a little nerve racking."
But with the hotel now open those high waters are nothing more than a memory.
"In order for us to be successful we have to have a casino that is welcoming, a casino that you want to go to, so that's the big challenge," said Blackhawk.
WinnaVegas is hoping the casino brings more tourism dollars to Siouxland, around 500,000 people visit that casino each year.
Speaking of those ducks, WinnaVegas still has them, but casino officials don't know what's going to become of them.
They're not really equipped to move up and down the Missouri River.
It would be pretty easy to sell them during the summer, but casino staff say they have some sentimental value.
