![]() ![]() ![]() By 4:30 p.m., the river had begun to spill onto Riverside Drive in Tulsa and was rising rapidly. No one knew just how high the Arkansas River would reach. Plans were being made early Saturday evening to move residents from the University Village retirement center into the adjoining City of Faith hospital.ĭisaster officials were distressed to learn Saturday afternoon that some evacuees were moving back into their homes on the river's west bank, and emphasized that the situation remained extremely dangerous. Residents of the Bixby Manor nursing home were transferred Saturday morning to a home on higher ground in Tulsa. By Saturday afternoon, the Red Cross had put 17 shelters into operation from Sand Springs to Bixby. A Red Cross shelter in Okmulgee quickly filled up, and the Salvation Army opened a backup shelter in Glenpool. Jenks evacuees were directed south, to Okmulgee. By late afternoon, mandatory evacuation orders had been issued in both Jenks and Bixby. At 7 a.m., officials downstream from Tulsa in Jenks and Bixby began urging residents in those towns to evacuate. Tulsa's Civil Defense office began sounding the city's flood-alert sirens along the Arkansas River at 5:30 a.m. Officials were hoping that the hours of advance warning would prevent any deaths or injuries. No serious injuries or deaths had resulted from Saturday's flooding, said Mike Baker, press spokesman at the Civil Defense command post in Tulsa. That flooding was not expected to reach Tulsa until late Saturday. By 4:30 p.m., 300,000 cubic feet of water per second (CFS) was roaring through the floodgates.Īt that rate, Corps officials said, the Arkansas River would reach record flood levels from the Keystone Dam to Muskogee. Throughout the day Saturday, the Corps steadily increased releases from the Keystone Dam west of here. Corps of Engineers released a record flood into the Arkansas River. TULSA Thousands of Tulsa County residents, their belongings hastily packed into pickup trucks, rental trucks and trailers, fled for higher ground Saturday as the U.S. ![]()
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