Visitors to the Oxford City Pool were in for quite a surprise when they showed up last Saturday morning and found the pool completely drained.

According to Logan Bay, a lifeguard at the pool, the pool was being backwashed on Friday, June 8, because the water was beginning to look cloudy. Backwashing is a process of partially draining the pool in order to clean the water and make it clearer.

However, Bay said a manager at the pool accidentally missed a valve when turning the backwash off, and the pool was left to drain overnight.

“The next morning, our pool director got the call that the pool was empty,” Bay said. “We initially thought it was bad, but once the first of the families started coming through, we all realized that it wasn’t so bad after all. The kids loved it.”

Despite the low water level, the pool remained open for operation on Saturday and Sunday. The  families who visited the pool made the most of the shallow situation, sans diving and cannonballs.

The pool, which holds 500,000 gallons of water, has since been refilled and is back in working order.