Rogers County Takes A Drenching

For many drivers in Rogers County, Thursday began with frayed nerves along with their morning cup of coffee.  A stretch of 86th Street in Owasso was closed, so drivers had to find another way to work.  News On 6 anchor Craig Day reports eventually they got through the high water, but others weren't as lucky.

East of Claremore, a car slammed into high water near Lake Drive, which is now more like River Road.  John Yocham has seen it happen before along Dog Creek.

"There's a lot of people, they don't have any fear of high water.  They'll try to drive through it.  Get down there half way and the car starts moving," said John Yocham of Rogers County.

Yocham has a view of the flood waters from his front yard.  He says he's seen it get high before, but this is one of the worst.  It's high enough that several roads in the area are closed.

There was so much rain in such a short amount of time that Claremore City Lake is now going over its spillway.  And, all that water has to go somewhere.

"All of the storms in the past couple of days have just really hit hard and dumped a lot of water on us, but I think it's the stuff up north that's really getting us here," said Joyce Patton of Claremore.

The water coming across the spillway is nearly three feet deep.

Throughout the morning, several people came to see the flooding firsthand.

"This is the highest I've ever seen the Claremore Lake flood over the spillway.  Never have in 30 years," said Arnold Brown of Claremore.

While the flooding is a curiosity for some, emergency crews remind it is also dangerous, and with so much rainfall, it will be for some time.

Portions of Rogers County got about four inches of rain in a 24 hour period, but the ground was already saturated from previous storms.

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