Heavy Rains Flood Parts Of Rogers County

Saturday, June 23rd 2007, 4:28 pm

By: News On 6

Another round of heavy rains leaves some of us wading high waters. Rogers County residents awoke to more rainy weather. The News On 6â€™s Chris Wright reports the rain ceased Saturday afternoon, but in parts of the county, the water continued to rise.

Instead of spending their Saturday at a fundraiser, some Claremore parents spent it cleaning up after Mother Nature.

The group of parents works the Big Blast Fireworks stand. Every year before the Fourth of July, they sell fireworks to raise money for their kids' sports teams, but because of the early morning flooding, they were forced to spend their day moving everything to higher ground.

"The rain came, and it just kept coming,â€ said Claremore resident Tom Howe. â€œGot up about two inches below our shelves, so we had to move everything up."

The rising waters also kept first responders busy. Bob Anderson runs Emergency Management in Rogers County. He says even though the sun finally came out, his job was far from done. He says the run-off from the storm continued to feed area creeks.

"The rain stopped, but we still have water rising on a lot of our county roads," said Anderson.

Also making things worse, some people have chosen to drive straight past warning signs and into high water.

In other parts of Rogers County, officials say they've had some trouble and had to perform a number of high water rescues because residents simply ignored the sign they put out and tried to drive through all the high water.

"The problem is they're putting our emergency responders at risk, of us going out there trying to retrieve them,â€ Anderson said. â€œThey're endangering themselves, because they don't know how swift this water is."

"It's irritating. We're hoping to be open and get people to buy fireworks for the Fourth of July,â€ said Claremore resident Jennifer Harlan. â€œWhen the weather's like this, it's a little devastating."

Now they just hope to clean up everything up in time to avoid a soggy Fourth of July. A number of volunteers from the Tulsa chapter of the American Red Cross say they have already helped six families affected by the flooding.

If anyone still needs help, they can call 918-831-1109.

Watch the video: Rogers Country Pounded By Heavy Rains