Crews Hard At Work To Finish Oklahoma Road Projects Before Winter

Several counties hit hard by severe storms are trying to catch up on road projects.

Flooding and debris cleanup made it hard for road crews to even start projects they already had scheduled. Now one county commissioner is trying to complete double the amount of projects before winter.

A lot of the county road projects are working against the clock to make sure the roads are finished in time for the first cold snap.

On East Davis Field Road, traffic is down to one lane as contractors finish smoothing out a fresh layer of pavement.

Summer paving projects like that sat on the back burner because of heavy downpours and flooding, and County Commissioner Ken Doke is working on finishing several road and bridge projects in his district.

"Last I looked we had almost $30 million worth of projects in some phase or another," he said.

Doke said his county road crews spent much of the summer cleaning up and repairing millions of dollars’ worth of flood damage to county roads.

"We've done a pretty good job of getting the roads back to pre-flood conditions now. Now, we're trying to move on to new projects," he said.

Doke said the paving contractors don't have much time to get the roads finished, so they're doubling up on the number of projects.

He said, "We had so much rain, I mean all the way through up to July. So now we're trying to get all that asphalt laid with just a small amount of warm weather left."

Neighbor Greg Lester is glad to see the fresh asphalt, saying the old roads take a toll on his ride.

“They've been needing to do this for a long time," Lester said. "It beats the truck up; it beats the car up."

Tulsa County is also working to finish some delayed road projects at 91st and Garnett and 34th Street South and 65th West Avenue.

Chief Deputy Commissioner Michael Willis said storm debris cleanup took a priority after the March tornado.

Doke said he's working with FEMA and expects to be reimbursed for some of the damages related to last spring and summer's flooding.