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October 9, 2009

NEW: Heavy rains flood Oklahoma roads, threaten homes

By SEAN MURPHY

Associated Press Writer

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Rising floodwaters threatened homes and left drivers stranded Friday after heavy rains across Oklahoma washed out roads and sent creeks and rivers over their banks.

Volunteers worked to protect homes, state highways were shut down in several counties and officials tried to prepare for cascading effects.

"With flooding, rivers upstream could be causing us trouble later on down the line," said Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

Big Cabin Creek flooded its banks after the area received more than 6 inches of rain, said Craig County Emergency Management Director Morris Bluejacket. There were no reports of injuries.

"There are at least two houses where the water is lapping against them," Bluejacket said Friday. "We've sandbagged those houses, and it's still on the rise."

There also was a report of a flooded home in the McAlester area, Ooten said.

Rising water forced the closure of at least eight Craig County roads, Bluejacket said, with several reports of motorists whose cars became stranded in high water. State highways were shut down Friday in Cherokee, Nowata, Pittsburg and Wagoner counties, the Department of Transportation reported.

At least some rain fell across the entire state in a 24-hour period from Thursday to Friday, with the heaviest rainfall in the south-central and eastern parts of Oklahoma, said Forrest Mitchell, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Norman. There were reports of 6 inches or more of rain in Craig, Cherokee and Adair counties in northeast Oklahoma.

"That was a very potent upper-level storm system sweeping across the plains, along with the passage of a significant cold front," Mitchell said. "Shower and thunderstorm activity formed along and ahead of the cold front and brought widespread rainfall across all of Oklahoma."

In central Oklahoma, the Little River flooded its banks south of Tecumseh, but Mitchell said the flooding only affected rural farmland in parts of Pottawatomie County.

Mitchell said rain was still falling Friday in parts of southeast Oklahoma, but that most of the showers were expected to push east out of the state by the end of the day.

"After that, we'll have a little break -- a couple of days with no precipitation," he said.



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