Ahead Of The Storm: Looking Back On 2019's Historic Floods

In May 2019, all eyes were on the levees, dams, and the Arkansas River.

Record rain led to the worst flooding since 1986, and it hit Fort Gibson, Muskogee, and Sand Springs the hardest.

The flooding impacted homes and businesses, with more than 1,000 damaged or destroyed.

News On 6 is looking at what is being done to make sure this, or worse, flooding does not happen again.

And on a usual day, the blaring of a train’s horn is the only disruption in one Sand Springs neighborhood.

“We were always running around doing something,” Mary Ann McGinty said.

Mary Ann McGinty has lived in her home her entire life; so, she is used to that train.

Mary Ann remembers when her father built the garage in the backyard, and she remembers playing along the levee when she was too young to even know what it was or how important it would become.

Mary Ann and her husband, William, have been staples in their neighborhood that when the weather gets bad, neighbors turn to them.

Some of [the neighbors] were calling us to see when to move out,” Mary Ann said. “I knew they were waiting to see if we moved out [to know] if they needed to.”

Like many people, the McGintys didn’t have a choice. They were forced from their home when the power was cut.

“The water was coming—gurgling—under the levee. That’s two-and-a-half blocks by the time the water came up: it was two blocks,” Mary Ann remembered. “I was checking it all the time. The electric line that went across the river…the water was actually hitting the bottom of the lines. So, the electric company cam out and turned off the power.”

The McGintys got lucky, as their home was spared. But just a few miles away, it was all hands on deck.

Jeremy Herrington remembers the May 2019 flooding.

I was pretty confident with the numbers—I was seeing between 200 and 220; we were going to be under water,” Jeremy said. “And we were.”

Unlike the McGintys, Jeremy Herrington lives under the dam and along a burm.

Inside his home, everything was ruined as more than three feet of water gathered, and then sat, for more than a week.

“everything we thought we were going to escape with upstairs wound up mildewing; and a house sitting in water that long…the whole house becomes consumed; it’s not just cutting out three feet,” Jeremy said.

Without flood insurance, it cost Jeremy and his wife more than $155,000 to rebuild.

“There are many things that still are not fully back up. We got to the point where we would move back in and then we limped along,” Jeremy shared. “we’re finally complete now, but I would venture to say there’s 50 percent, if not more, that are not fully complete. Because, if your not doing it on insurance money, you are doing it on your own and you can only do it when you’ve got the money.”

William, Mary Ann, and Jeremy agree: it is going to happen again.

And they want to know that something is going to be done to fix the strained levee system that barely stood the test two years ago.

Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith shared what is being done.

“We are getting closer and closer. We are about to enter the pre-engineering and design phase, and we have some good news when it comes to funding from the federal [level] and our ability to do a local match,” Keith said. “All of that is coming together as we speak, so that is some excellent news. But when will you see skipping to the light fantastic is when we actually break ground on the rebuild.”

The project to fix the 70-year-old levee system will cost more than $125 million, and the money will come locally and from the federal government. However, it is a process that is going to take several years.

“In the meantime, where we had huge erosion issues, the Corps has done a lot of work with the levee district. They’ve done a lot of patching and trying to make it get through the next seasons,” Keith said. “So, there is ongoing work to make sure it holds up before we get an actual rebuild in place.”

And William just wants it to be done.

“I want it to be done; to take away any threat from it happening,” William stated. ‘It’s going to happen again and, at some point, that thing is going to break.”