Volume 9 , Issue 26

Where's The Ark?

"June 29, 2007-- Seventeen straight days of rain and it's the wettest June in history for Stillwater, Oklahoma. It's also one of the wettest years-to-date for the state. We can stop praying for rain now!

I-35 is closed due to high water at Lawton and some neighborhoods there have been evacuated (ordered closed by the acting mayor there). In OKC a business was closed by the partial collapse of the roof. The North Canadian River is expected to crest tomorrow. Most lakes are closed to the public and Independence Day ceremonies are being postponed.

Stillwater is just 25 miles southeast of Perry and so far this month they've had more than 25" of rain and are expecting more flooding this evening. They've had 5" just this week. Here in Perry, I dumped another 2-1/2" out of each of my rain gauges again today. Most of the state is under flood watch and flash flooding is happening everywhere.

In our own county the guys have been out putting up barricades to close flooded county roads. We hope that this low pressure system that is causing all this will move out in about 3 more days. Wow, the weather guys just gave us an update and said that Stillwater has now had 36" inches of rain this month and this is the 2nd wettest summer on record !!

The rain-gauge at my shop added another 3.5" today but the identical one here at the house only had about 2". The weather-people say it might quit Monday or Tuesday. I haven't seen any boats out yet!

Gasoline prices at the major brands were raised to $2.93 yesterday but dropped back down to $2.89.9 today (because many customers told the folks they'd just buy their gas in Stillwater where it's cheaper)!

I listen to several different local broadcasts on a police scanner and our local division of the state highway department has just issued some new signs for some of our roads. The signs say: "Five Miles Per Hour", "Water on Roadway", and "Be Prepared to Stop". I believe they were going to issue some of them to our county commissioners today also because of the flooding conditions that are happening. One of the signs (I think it was the "Be Prepared To Stop") was to be an orange sign.

I alerted our local street department yesterday to the fact that the "chug hole" they repaired several weeks ago at '5th street & Delaware' has re-appeared times three. When they repaired it previously, it was discovered that it had been caused by an underground water leak at the large water-line there to feed the fire hydrant and while repairing the leak, a multiwire underground telephone cable was cut and had to be repaired. There has been so much continuous rain recently that these three new chug holes are kept filled with water so that drivers cannot see them and vehicles coming around that corner are hitting two to three of those holes at the same time and smaller cars are bouncing quite a bit. Even the pickups and larger trucks are being shaken some and of course each time a vehicle hits one it gets a little worse. The photos I took only show the water that fills them in. You cannot see how deep they are. I hope that by now someone from the street department has had time to put up a barricade or two (yes I know they're very busy at this time) so that one of our local emergency vehicles (police car or fire truck) driving fast won't hit one and "spin out.

June 30, 2007 -- One more revelation: I can see patches of blue sky in between the clouds above and there is some drying taking place (shh...let's hope that it continues)." -- Roy of Perry, OK
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