Oklahoma lawmakers began Tuesday their review of Arkansas River flooding that happened this spring.
The state was hit with a nearly unparalleled severe weather season. Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management Director Mark Gower said the statewide emergency operations center was activated April 30 as an EF-3 tornado hit Blue, Oklahoma, and that activation didn’t cease until June 26.
"This is the second-longest activation in our department history, and it rivals that of the Murrah Building bombing. We have seen nearly 120 tornadoes so far this year, 102 of them confirmed during May, and we only normally see 68 in the entire year," Gower said.
Gower said six people died and more than 100 were hurt in severe weather this spring.
State agency officials are still tallying the damage from spring storms and floods. Oklahoma Department of Transportation Maintenance Engineer Brian Taylor said they have a rough estimate right now it will cost the agency $21 million, $5 million of that for damage to the state highway system.
"That number gets better every day as far as accuracy, but also, our damage reports, we continue to receive those. So, as we find more problems, that adds to our list," Taylor said.
And while floods inundated thousands of acres of farmland in Oklahoma, there may be a solution.
Oklahoma Conservation Commission Director Trey Lam told lawmakers the state’s soils have lost half their organic materials content in the past century. That means more water runs off instead of being absorbed.
Lam said increasing the amount of organic materials 1% on crop land and 0.5% on range land would allow for more than 1 trillion additional gallons of drainage near areas hit hard by spring floods.
"And that would be the equivalent to building reservoirs the size of Texoma, Eufaula, Oologah, Broken Bow and adding Canton Lake to that," Lam said.
The conservation commission runs an education program to teach farmers and ranchers how to boost their soil’s organic material content.
The interim study will continue next month.
