Westville Residents Frustrated After Floods

Dan Bewley, News On 6

WESTVILLE, Oklahoma -- The rain may have stopped but it caused a muddy mess all across Green Country. News On 6 reporter Dan Bewley went to Westville where residents have been stuck in the mud thanks to flooded roads.

For more than a week residents on Hilltop Acres have been dealing with a muddy mess.

"It's like Jell-O," Matt Kiddy said. I've lived out here six years and it's not been this bad."

"It's madness," Nancy Daniel said. "We haven't been able to get in or out."

Around 20 families live on a road south of Westville in Adair County. They say the rain was so heavy last week you could barely see. It did a number on the only way for them to get in or out of the area.

"People were trying to go through this because you couldn't see how bad it was and ended up digging out big ruts, getting stuck," Andrea Bresler said.

The road is still a challenge to drive days after the rain stopped and it's only been like this for less than 24 hours.  Residents say immediately after the storm there were large puddles of water and huge ruts from trucks that tried to make it through.

"There was standing water in it. The mud was so bad, just walking across it people were sinking and having trouble getting out," Bresler said.

Bresler says the kids who live here haven't been able to go to school, some residents have missed work, and they feel like they've been given the run around from whoever's responsible for fixing the problem.

"My grandmother was without here medicine for four or five days, having asthma attacks right and left because she couldn't get out and get her inhalers," she said.

"Just more than what I can control, you know, to make it better for them," Keith Davis, an Adair County Commissioner, said.

Keith Davis, an Adair County commissioner, says the 14 inches of rain the area received is causing problems across his district. He also says he's brought eight truck loads of gravel to help the residents here on Hilltop Acres.

"I understand the situation but I feel like I've done everything I can do, as a commissioner, to make it better for them to try and get them access out," Davis said.

The folks here are hoping it gets better soon, but for now, they say it's easy to sum up the situation.

"It's been a pretty good headache," Nancy Daniel said.

Commissioner Davis says he plans to bring a backhoe, a grater, even a Caterpillar to help flatten out the road and drain out some of the water. But, he says, what it really needs is just time and sunshine.