The twenty year anniversary of the Arkansas River flood is coming up in three weeks. The actual event from when it started raining till the water went down covered almost a week, but the actual day the Dam released 310,000 cubic feet per second was October 4th, 1986.
I have vivid memories of standing on the I-44 bridge with the water rushing just below the bottom of the bridge.
I spent hours with sandbags along the east bank around 25th and Riverside.
It was chaos at first. Some reporter said that Brookside was going to be underwater and others said they had heard that there were cracks all through Keystone Dam. Neither proved true.
The next day, I went through Cherry Creek mobile home park by boat with some Red Cross folk looking for victims to rescue.
I also remember hundreds of city workers and civil defense folk working all night long.
Does anybody else have memories they can share?
I was away at college in 1986, but my parents kept me up to date about the flood. Their house had both flooded and caught on fire in the 1984 flood, so they were very nervous. They lived near Riverside, at a low point, and so had to evacuate. According to my parents, the hysteria got a bit out of control prior to the flood--with warnings that there might even be flooding in Woodward Park (could you imagine that much water?). Ultimately, they were very lucky--only water up to the door. While the hysteria was a bit much to bear, at least residents had time to prepare, unlike 1984.
I helped a friend move alot of his belongings and furniture out of his house around 43rd and Madison.....We took most of his stuff to the Texaco that was located at 43rd and Peoria(Due north of Penningtons).....We put heavey ply-wood on top of the automotive lifts stacked his belongings on it and raised the lift up and left it there until the worst was over...A few of pitched in and helped him and man did him and his wife appreciate it...Although the chance of flooding in that area was slim he was not taking a chance....The worst of it would further north on Riverside and the 31st and Cinncinati area.....In the Cinncinati area the river can get high enough to be above the level of the storm drain discharges and backflood through the neighborhoods....
I was too young to remember this event but it must have been something to see the river that high. I remember once in the early 90's sometime the river was unusually high, just below the pedestrian bridge. Was the pedestrian bridge completely underwater during the '86 flood? And the Cherry Creek mobile home park was underwater as well? How much land on the west bank of Tulsa was underwater?
quote:
Originally posted by SXSW
I was too young to remember this event but it must have been something to see the river that high. I remember once in the early 90's sometime the river was unusually high, just below the pedestrian bridge. Was the pedestrian bridge completely underwater during the '86 flood? And the Cherry Creek mobile home park was underwater as well? How much land on the west bank of Tulsa was underwater?
I saw the water just under the 21st bridge from my bike at that time but was chased off by security. My life at that time centered around two little boys, my job and my house payments. Little time to spend around a flooding river. Believe me, people were stressed.
I've been on the river with a release of about 50,000cfs and that is thrilling enough. Hard to imagine over 300,000. The river is deceptive with these high flows. Not so much raging, boiling, swirling but more unstoppable and relentless. The debris causes a lot of damage.
Someone please refresh my memory - was this the flood that was called a "controlled flood?"
A buddy of mine that lived near Bixby got the bright idea to get a closer look by boat. He got his canoe out and we went out and paddled around on the sod farms down in the flats. He wanted to get closer to the river, but I wasn't having any part of getting swept in the current down to Muskogee! I remember creek channels in the middle of the farms being covered up by the floods.
Maybe the extent of the impending flood was "over-hyped" but I don't recall any deaths or serious injuries along Brookside or on the west banks- mainly due to people heeding the warnings.
Now imagine impeding those flood waters with a large dam across the Arkansas practically in the center of Tulsa. The flooding would be severe. Sunoco and the refineries would probably be underwater, causing an environmental and economic disaster.
I got a good dog out of that flood! We lived in a 2nd floor unit at the Riverbend apartments near 81st & Riverside. About the time the river reached its peak, a very wet and dirty cocker spaniel showed up. Never knew where he came from and couldn't find an owner after the flood, so we ended up keeping him.
Helped our downstairs neighbors move their furniture up to our aparmtent as the river was rising, but thankfully it ultimately proved unnecessary.
Also went and helped fill sandbags with lots of other volunteers and some national guard guys in a parking lot over on Brookside.
As I recall there was a big propane tank or something that had floated down the river and was smacked up against one of the bridges right below the deck, I-44 I think.
(http://nynerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/youmightbearedneck1.jpg)
Me and my bud's just went fishing that day of the flood......[:D]
Accomodations right at the top of the boat ramp! Man you can't beat that! [;)]
I was living and teaching in Bixby, spent 48 hours sandbagging along with the WHOLE poplulation of Bixby. The morning before I had tried to get all my swimmers home safely from an early AM swim practice. I did but saw the river rising along 121st street. It was scarey. Later in the day saw the water hitting the bottom of the old yellow bridge as we were evacuating school buses. At least I was the head swim coach and knew I could probably swim in just about any current. Waded in waist deep water to get into the high school to make sure equipment was up high enough. My only thought was the pissed off reptilia in the water. Oh well. Had to show ID and permit to get in and out of Bixby. My first encounter with 'security'. It was scarey.
I have to commend all the teaching, administrative, and general staff of Bixby Public Schools during that time. We really were a family. It's a great school system. Wish I would have never left.
I will never believe that the Arkansas River is fixed. I also lived through the floods of the 50's in which the area of 31st and Riverside and beyond was under water.
You can tame her for awhile but she'll get you.
I had recently purchased a home right off Riverside drive on 43rd. One vivid memory is that of a tanker truck floating by in the river. I believe that it jammed up against a bridge until someone was able to remove it.
The other thing that I remember well is the "flood siren". I had no idea that such a thing existed, but it was VERY loud. A voice over the speaker kept repeating to evacuate the area. It was quite an experience!
quote:
Originally posted by cks511
I was living and teaching in Bixby, spent 48 hours sandbagging along with the WHOLE poplulation of Bixby. The morning before I had tried to get all my swimmers home safely from an early AM swim practice. I did but saw the river rising along 121st street. It was scarey. Later in the day saw the water hitting the bottom of the old yellow bridge as we were evacuating school buses. At least I was the head swim coach and knew I could probably swim in just about any current. Waded in waist deep water to get into the high school to make sure equipment was up high enough. My only thought was the pissed off reptilia in the water. Oh well. Had to show ID and permit to get in and out of Bixby. My first encounter with 'security'. It was scarey.
I have to commend all the teaching, administrative, and general staff of Bixby Public Schools during that time. We really were a family. It's a great school system. Wish I would have never left.
I will never believe that the Arkansas River is fixed. I also lived through the floods of the 50's in which the area of 31st and Riverside and beyond was under water.
You can tame her for awhile but she'll get you.
Amen brother CKS. As long as there are humans building and operating systems, there will be human mistakes and the dam is no exception.
quote:
Originally posted by billintulsa
Someone please refresh my memory - was this the flood that was called a "controlled flood?"
Basically yes, it was a controlled release that caused downstream flooding.
I remember the "flood siren" too. I was at TU, and we heard this weird siren, so we all went downstairs, thinking it was a new tornado alarm. Then somebody talked to somebody who said it was flood siren (which we'd never heard)...so we all laughed and decided we should all go upstairs instead.
It was incredible to see the water so close to the bottom of the bridges. I remember they actually got a train with cars full of gravel (or something heavy) and parked them on the tracks that go across the river...to add weight to the bridge to help (I guess) hold it in place.
One of my brother's friends lived at Westport, and I believe he said that the lower units at Westport flooded.
People wanting to spend money on river developement need to be reminded about the 1986 flood! Also they should talk to the corp of engineers at the Keystone damn.They have told me that if more water than the damn can hold comes down the river again they will open the flood gates again!
I asked about all of us down stream and was told the corps main intrest is the preservation of the damn, first!
So i would figure another flood is possible.
The preservation of the dam is definitely more important. Can you imagine the destruction a Keystone dam break would cause downstream? It would completely devastate Tulsa and all of the communities along the Arkansas. The '86 flood was a 300 year flood event and the developers of The Channels are saying it can withstand a 300 year flood. What about the 500 year flood?
quote:
Originally posted by SXSW
The preservation of the dam is definitely more important. Can you imagine the destruction a Keystone dam break would cause downstream? It would completely devastate Tulsa and all of the communities along the Arkansas. The '86 flood was a 300 year flood event and the developers of The Channels are saying it can withstand a 300 year flood. What about the 500 year flood?
Or a 600 year?
LOL. A few years ago in Indy they had a 100 year flood and 300 year flood all within five weeks of each other. Go figure. So 300 years ago what did they control. No answer needed.
The newspaper ran a story about 10yrs later describing how that natural flood event was really a human error event. It was in fact avoidable.
Its not the floods I worry about on the river. They are inevitable. We can minimize their damage. Its the belief that we have so much trust in our control systems that we can develop in such a way as to increase risk downstream. Any dam can break, nature can overwhelm a dam, humans can make mistakes that make the dam ineffective. Prudent planning takes that into account. That is why the corps makes it so difficult to make changes to the river.
There was some equipment failures in 1986 that contributed to the flood.
Two rivers flow into Keystone lake, the Cimmaron and the Arkansas. There are flow monitors at key points that give the Corps of Engineers the data they need to control flooding.
The flow gauges on the Cimarron malfunctioned and didn't report how much rain was occuring in Central Oklahoma and the lake started filling up too fast.
The story ten years ago also said that the Corps was trying to hold off releases because the Bixby area was flooding from the north the few days before.
In hindsight, some poor decisions were made as to when to start releasing more water and when they got in trouble with Keystone dam filling up too fast, the Corps was forced to open the gates to a record 310,000 cubic feet per second.
quote:
Originally posted by recyclemichael
***
The story ten years ago also said that the Corps was trying to hold off releases because the Bixby area was flooding from the north the few days before.
In hindsight, some poor decisions were made as to when to start releasing more water and when they got in trouble with Keystone dam filling up too fast, the Corps was forced to open the gates to a record 310,000 cubic feet per second.
I think very few people appreciate the difficulties in controlling a dynamic river system.
Consider that in making decisions on releases you are dealing not only with rainfall and flow upstream, but the same factors immediately at the control structure, in the downstream channel, and in all of the converging rivers and streams, and that the amount and duration of rainfall at every location may be differing wildly.
Often the question isn't how to keep everyone from flooding, but who gets flooded and by how much. Don't underestimate the difficulty of making such decisions.
I always love the people (like at Eufaula during the recent drought) who seem to think the Corps can control the weather instead of just the dams.
My dad took a few pictures of the pedestrian bridge before he was forced to leave:
(http://usera.imagecave.com/cantretsky/1986flood001-copy-copy.jpg)
(http://usera.imagecave.com/cantretsky/1986flood3.jpg)
Geez, those photos raised the hair on my neck. I could have gone a lifetime without seeing that again. I work about a half mile west of the river on 41st St. I need to ask my boss if it came over the west bank down here. Seems like there was some flooding in Garden City.
I've had this picture in my mind since RM said the release was taken up to 310,000 CFM, of some poor guy wincing, covering, his eyes, and saying "310??????!!!!! Okay boss" as he reached for the lever [;)]
Here is a letter to the editor that ran in today's Tulsa World in the reader's forum section.
It was written by my mother...
http://www.tulsaworld.com/OpinionStory.asp?ID=061001_Op_G4_Lesso2593
Here is the text.
Lessons learned from the 1986 flood
By ANN PATTON
10/1/2006
Tulsans have reason to celebrate. This week marks 20 years since Tulsa's last major flood.
People with long memories will know how remarkable that is. In the 1970s and '80s, Tulsa was flooding about every other year. Tulsa County earned the embarrassing distinction of having nine federal flood disasters in 15 years, the nation's worst flood record. Thousands of houses were ruined. People died. Our national reputation was a joke.
In late September 1986, the remnants of southwestern Mexico's Hurricane Paine parked uphill from Tulsa and dumped nearly 2 feet of rain northwest of Keystone Lake. The river swelled. The Corps of Engineers had to open Keystone Dam's floodgates and send a torrent downstream -- through Sand Springs, Tulsa, Jenks and Bixby.
It was not the first flood along the Arkansas River -- in fact, the river flooded every few years for most of Tulsa's history. But 1986 was the first serious Arkansas River flood at Tulsa since Keystone Dam was completed in '64. Popular thought held that the river would never flood again -- although the corps warned that Keystone could overflow every 25 years, more or less.
The crisis lasted a week and at its peak, about 300,000 cubic feet per second of water swept through Tulsa.
While the dam was safe, no one knew how high the water would rise and whether the sand levees (built quickly in World War II) would hold at Sand Springs, Tulsa and Jenks. The corps feared a catastrophic failure of the levee system. The Sand Springs levee was breached but volunteers managed to plug it.
Thousands were evacuated. Hundreds stuffed sandbags -- with little effect -- along the river, including in the bowl that was Riverside Drive south of 21st Street. On the west bank, the river swamped Garden City up to the rooftops, and the trapped, polluted water lingered for days, like a mini-New Orleans.
More than 1,800 homes and businesses went under water. Tulsa County damages were estimated at $63.5 million (in '86 dollars), $32.5 million at Sand Springs and $13.4 million at Bixby. The same week, almost all streams in northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas rose out of their banks causing $283 million in damages, the corps reported.
When the water began to recede, it was clear that River Parks had gone almost under water. Officials hosed off the grass and the joggers were back on track. That narrow, green band of River Parks gave us the needed margin of safety.
There are at least two reasons that we haven't had a major flood in Tulsa in two decades. We have learned to build more wisely, more respectful of the natural laws of water and land, and monster rains have not cycled our way.
There are new reasons to worry about big storms since lakes, dams and dikes don't last forever. Keystone Lake is slowly silting in and a filled bathtub can't hold much water. The dam and levees are aging, and buildings are creeping closer to the capricious river, which some mistakenly believe has been tamed.
The '86 flood proved that the Arkansas River needs its channel and banks open to carry floodwaters. The Arkansas River drains 22,000 square miles of land above Tulsa. Experts know heavy rains are possible and a worst-case scenario flood at Tulsa could be bigger than the one in 1986.
The flood showed that it's possible to live with a river, but you have to live by its rules -- because, as they say in Argentina: "The river always wins."
Are we in danger of forgetting? Hubris rises in dry years.
Those who remember the '86 flood celebrate the free flow of the Arkansas River and the peaceful, green fringe alongside it. May Tulsans continue to respect and preserve the river so we can enjoy it for generations to come.
Ann Patton, Tulsa, is a writer and consultant who was part of the team that created Tulsa's award-winning floodplain management program.
Awwwright Mom!
Nice piece RM. I take it from her words that she's not a proponent of building islands on the river?
quote:
Originally posted by waterboy
The newspaper ran a story about 10yrs later describing how that natural flood event was really a human error event. It was in fact avoidable.
Its not the floods I worry about on the river. They are inevitable. We can minimize their damage. Its the belief that we have so much trust in our control systems that we can develop in such a way as to increase risk downstream. Any dam can break, nature can overwhelm a dam, humans can make mistakes that make the dam ineffective. Prudent planning takes that into account. That is why the corps makes it so difficult to make changes to the river.
I get it. Water doesn't cause flooding. People cause flooding.
quote:
Originally posted by Conan71
Awwwright Mom!
Nice piece RM. I take it from her words that she's not a proponent of building islands on the river?
I think she is probably opposed to building anything in the floodway. Building in the floodplain is one thing, but floodway is another.
I also sense that she and many others are real proud of the Tulsa flood mitigation program and would hate to see the reputation shattered if we then have to rescue people from the middle of the river.
Yup. Well said.
That's why I've been very cool to this islands idea from the beginning (in addition to the costs, of course).
Because it, in essence, isolates itself from the mainland, it's a disaster waiting to happen.
Driving across the 11th St. bridge, all it takes is a cursory glance down the river to figure out that would take out a lot floodway area.
I went to school with JKW and can't figure out why someone that smart would jump on the band wagon for something that seems pretty foolish from a number of stand-points.