High water

[Flintauqua]

1-888-BIG-BOAT

[kdfrawg]

You're going to want to get out your cubit-sticks and that big book of instructions for telling the girl animals from the boy animals. Don't go anywhere without it.

[Mom70x7]

Going through USGS' historical water flow data, If I'm reading the charts correctly, the only three times the water has been this high at Elk Falls (in the past 39 years) was on 10/03/1986 and 06/22/1977 when it was just higher than is now, and on 07/03/1976 when it maxed out the gage.

We lived just north of the Dam in 1986 - about 3 miles west of Sycamore. We had a LOT of water then. Our house sat on a slight hill in the property - not a real hill, just enough to keep the water out of the house. We were surrounded by the water, though. Had to park our car out on the road and wade to the house.

We lived on an intersection, the northwest corner. The only way to get into Independence was to go north for several miles, then back east to Highway 75. The other three roads were all flooded.

And in 1977, we lived in Bartlesville - the Caney flooded down there. Covered the park downtown and several businesses downtown. The water table was so high we had water coming UP through our floor drain. The cement basement floor cracked and we had water coming up through the cracks.

Memories.

[Janet Harrington]

Driving to and from El Dorado for work was not a problem as the highway was pretty much allowing the rain to get off the highway.  It was better driving when I was the front car.

Anyway, saw lots and lots of water.  The watershed north of Howard is the fullest I have ever seen it.

There is a small lake of some sort west of Beaumont north of the highway.  The lake is always on both sides of the road.  Most of the time, when it rains, the water goes over that county road.  Well, let me tell you.  A person cannot even see that there is a county road that divides that water.  The small lake is so full it is headed towards the highway.

Salt Creek at Severy is the highest I have seen it since they took Dead Man's Curve out of the highway.  Now, if we still had Dead Man's Curve, that highway would have been closed and Ralph Crane or Vernon Ludvickson, (both DOT men and fathers of two of my best friends), would have been standing out there with the truck and maybe allowing tall vehicles go across the bridge.  Cars were not allowed.  (Those were the days.)

I'll post one of Mother's pictures when I get the pixels trimmed.

[kdfrawg]

I thought about you and your long drive several times today. You were certainly out there enough today to see what was going on with all that water. Thanks for the descriptions.

[Dee Gee]

Dumped 5" of rain out of my gauge this morning and good mostly cloudy day until 8:30 tonight then it started to rain again and in the last hour we have 2.5 inches more and it is still raining hard.  We need to get this rain shipped to desertlilydarla.  I did find the article on the ducky's very interesting.

[Wilma]

Janet's lake west of Beaumont is a watershed.  That road was passable for a long time after the watershed was put in.  However, there was a sign at the highway saying impassable in high water.  Then the water never seemed to go down enough for it to be passable again.

[Flintauqua]

Just got a report from father (Stub Durbin), he had dumped 11 inches out of his rain guage as of 9:00 pm and still raining.  That's 11 plus since dark yesterday.  Moline has water everywhere, though my sister Roberta is still OK at the west end of first street, though her neighbors to the north have water on three sides.  A lot of people are out of their homes along west second and probably west third, as well as most folks north of the creek.  

Elk River is still going up, two feet since 6:00 pm today and five feet since noon.  I hope people have made it out of their homes.  Going by numbers alone, this is the worst flooding since early July 1976 which has always been considered the "flood of record".  And watching KOTV channel 6 Tulsa, they are projecting another 6-10 inches through Sunday night across all of Elk, Chautauqua, Montgomery and Wilson counties.

There were many rescues from roof tops in 1976, let's hope that doesn't happen this time!!!

And, I hope the Corps tells the Independence Zoo when they open the gates on Elk City Reservoir this time so they don't lose the animals in the low parts of the park like they did in 1976.

[Mom70x7]

Kake-tv, channel 10 out of Wichita, said we've had 18 inches of rain so far, in the last 36 hours. And rain is forecast for the next two days. 


I had started to use the  - but didn't want to add to the water levels.     

[kdfrawg]

I'm really starting to get worried about you folks that are down fairly low. There's obviously only so much rain that an area will take before it starts to cause real problems. Most of Elk County has to be very close to that point. Worse, they seem to be extending the length of time that it is going to rain.

I have my little frawgy fingers crossed for all of you.