Nonprofit Recognized For Recovery Efforts In Tulsa County After June Storms

Tulsa County recognized the work of Samaritan’s Purse Monday with a proclamation noting their work with almost 600 homeowners, with volunteers giving 12,000 hours of service.

Samaritan’s Purse finished work in Tulsa County last week.

“So many of the people we serve are without the resources to do the work themselves,” said Karissa Ryan. “So we can be that helping hand that gets them started.”

The government-sponsored cleanup continues with the fleet of grapple trucks out picking up limbs on nine of 11 zones where they’ll work.

The neighbors around 61st and Sheridan were happy to see trucks pull in.

“We saw the trucks when we were coming into the neighborhood, and were hoping we were next," Rebekah Roberts said.

Each truck can haul 74,000 pounds of material, and the trailer that much or more. The trucks will be out for at least two more weeks.

How Is Clean-Up Progressing After Summer Storms?

Tulsa Emergency Management reports the debris pickup is going a little faster than expected, in part because there's less debris than first predicted.

“While this was a tremendous amount of green waste, historically, it's not even close to our storm of record on green waste,” said Joe Kralicek, the Director of Tulsa Emergency Management.

So far, the County contractor has picked up 600,000 cubic yards of trees and limbs, while the total from the 2007 ice storm was 2.7 million cubic yards.

FEMA is paying most of the costs for the cleanup, which started one month ago.

The trucks will make one pass through the City, then a second sweep where it's needed.