Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press Wednesday, May 27, 2015 15

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No injuries were report-ed, but the fire department responded to two calls to rescue individuals strand-ed by rising water, using a boat in one of the instances, Slezickey said.

The city manager com-mended all responding agen-cy heads for their cooperative efforts to effectively manage the disaster.

“Steve Loftis and his vol-unteers did a great job stay-ing up all night monitoring, and he had great communi-cations with state emergency management.

“Brad Shepard and OHP were a huge help for traf-fic management as well as ODOT. Chief Baker and the police department did an awesome job patrolling, keeping impacted residents calm and providing security overnight.

“Chief Stewart did an excellent job of managing the incident as incident com-mander, staying in touch with everyone performing a vital role, ensuring that clear communications were main-tained and keeping everyone safe and informed.”

Red Cross volunteers set up a temporary shelter Sunday in the Connextion Building at the First Baptist Church Sunday, serving meals to displaced individ-uals and emergency workers and housing one local resi-dent overnight.

Monday morning, coordi-nator Karen Wallis of Guthrie and volunteer Eva Vasquez of Coyle handed out clean-ing supplies to one resident who reported water damage inside his home on North Sixth Street, but most homes appear to have been spared significant flood damage.

With no direct route be-tween Kingfisher and Guth-rie, Wallis said she took I-35 to the Kilpatrick Turnpike to come into Kingfisher from the south, extending a typical 30 minute drive to more than an hour and a half.

Sam Fuston, the one over-night guest at the Red Cross shelter, said his residence on North Sixth Street has been flooded six times since he’s

lived there.“I’ve been through some

bad ones. My trailer sits 40 inches off the ground and in 2007 I had 29 inches of water standing inside,” he said, noting that he moved back into the trailer after rebuild-ing the floor and doing “a lot of cleanup.”

Fuston hadn’t returned home yet Monday morning to assess the damages this time, but was hopeful that his home would still be high and dry.

Brian Walter, owner of Walter Building Center on North Main Street and chair-man of a flood mitigation committee appointed by the city government after the devastation of the 2007 flood, said he’d like to think that ac-tions taken since then made this year’s event less costly.

“Did the railroad bridge (on the west side of town, widened by Union Pacific in an agreed settlement to a lawsuit filed by Walter and other flood-impacted property owners) keep the water from getting as high on Main Street as it might have? I can’t really say,” he said. “We never expected to elim-inate flooding here entirely, but I would like to think our efforts reduced the severity.

“We do know the flood buyout (funded by a state bond issue and FEMA grants) got some folks out who would have been flooded this time.”

Although Walter said he wasn’t expecting a flood from the weekend’s rain sys-tem, he had enough warning to move equipment to higher ground and lift his store’s merchandise out of harm’s way, but fortunately the water reached his front steps before receding and did not get inside the store.

“Our cleanup will be min-imal,” he said.

Loftis said two other low-lying businesses did report water inside, one with 12 inches and the other 18 inches.

When asked about the effectiveness of the city’s flood mitigation efforts, the city manager said: “We had 34 fewer buildings to be con-

cerned with (the commercial and residential buidlings that were bought out and demolished through the federal- and state-funded program) so that helped focus our attention where it was needed and also gave us better visibility across the west bottom.”

Rita Henze with Meshek and Associates, the Tulsa engineering firm charged with managing the city’s flood mitigation programs, said the value of moving structures and families out of harm’s way by buying and demolishing flood prone properties was evident in photos of the weekend flood where empty fields were under water where houses once stood.

“Looking north on Main Street, there was a lot of open space under water where buildings used to stand,” Henze said. “These build-ings will never again flood and will save all of us – the owners, taxpayers and the government – money now and in the future.”

A full damage assessment began Tuesday, along with cleanup efforts in both pri-vate buildings and on city streets, where receding water left piles of brush and other debris and heavy truck traf-fic diverted from the closed highways created or exacer-bated potholes.

The city commission met in emergency session at noon Tuesday to officially declare an emergency so that funds can be expended for needed repairs and cleanup.

Slezickey said an estimat-ed 239 acres were under wa-ter in and around Kingfisher – 126 acres west of U.S. 81 and 113 on the east side.

The county and state had been gripped by a prolonged drought before rain began falling in April.

The local crops, which had been drought-threatened be-fore the rains came now face water problems.

Soil is soaked and crops are drowning out in many fields, especially in low spots.

The same weather sys-tem also caused widespread flooding across the state and

in Texas.Loftis, who is also the

local weather observer for the National Weather service reported 3.25 inches of rain in Kingfisher on Saturday and Sunday.

Other rainfall reports in-cluded:

Dover – Debbie Benson reported 4.25 inches in Dover Saturday and Sunday while

Jack Witt, northwest of Dover reported 4.2 inches Jeremy Ingle, southeast of Dover, reported three inches of rain Saturday and another three inches on Sunday, a total of six inches.

Hennessey – 4.46 inches at the Harold Ebers residence east of Hennessey since last Friday.

Okarche – Brenda Slater,

southeast of Okarche re-ported a two-day total of six inches.

Loyal – Jon Cochran re-ported four inches on Satur-day and another two-tenths inch on Sunday.

Park Community – Monte Buckner, 2.7 inches.

Omega – Donald Sch-weitzer reported 3.7 inches northwest of Omega.

MAIN STREET looking south on Sunday, cap-tured by local photogra-pher Jeff Johnson (top); the raging Cimarron River from the U.S. 81 bridge north of King-fisher Monday morning; Red Cross volunteer co-ordinator Karen Willis, left, of Guthrie and vol-unteer Eva Vasquez of Coyle. [TIMES-FREE PRESS Staff and Provided Photos]

Flood[Continued From Page 1]

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