Price Tag from Spring Severe Weather Adding Up in Oklahoma

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The rain has stopped falling and the triple-digit heat of an Oklahoma summer has finally arrived, but state emergency managers are still adding up the price tag for repairing roads, bridges and other public infrastructure damaged by severe storms and torrential rainfall in May and June.

Days of downpours washed out roads, damaged bridges, flooded parks and other public facilities and even contributed to a rockslide in the Arbuckle Mountains in southern Oklahoma that blocked a heavily traveled portion of Interstate 35 between Oklahoma City and Dallas.

All northbound and southbound lanes were reopened on Aug. 7 after work crews spent seven weeks stabilizing the weathered rock face and hauling off an estimated 14,000 tons of fallen rock from the roadway.

The repair work along I-35 has cost about $2 million so far, according to Terri Angier, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. But the agency will spend millions more before it has completed dozens of other flood-related rebuilding and repair projects on the state’s highway network.

“We’re finding funds in every pocket we can to keep things moving,” Angier said. “We’re doing everything we can to not only repair all the damage we have, but also help the counties with theirs.”

The federal government has catalogued about $75 million in damage in the state due to the severe spring weather, said Albert Ashwood, director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. But Ashwood said the price tag will go up and it could take up to five years before the full cost is known.

“It was a huge flood, there was no doubt about it,” said Ashwood, who has said the extent of damage could eventually reach $200 million.

Rainfall totals associated with the storms are staggering. The Oklahoma Climatological Survey reports that Tishomingo in southern Oklahoma has received more than 56 inches of rain so far this year when it received just 34 inches all of last year. Oklahoma Highway 99 in Tishomingo remains closed because of road and bridge damage caused by heavy rains and flooding.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved the state’s request to provide public assistance for 59 counties that the state had submitted for aid to help cities, counties and rural electric cooperatives with infrastructure repairs, debris removal and costs associated with responding to the storms.

FEMA pays 75 percent of recovery costs with the state and local governments splitting the balance. The State Emergency Fund, which is routinely tapped to help pay the state’s cost of recovering from disasters, has a balance of just $13.6 million, but Ashwood said that is sufficient to meet the state’s short-term recovery needs.

“We have plenty of money in the fund to pay for the next 12 months,” Ashwood said. “Right now we’re pretty good.”

Ashwood said he has not decided whether to ask state lawmakers to replenish the emergency fund with a new appropriation when they convene the 2016 Oklahoma Legislature on Feb. 1. If he does seek additional funds, he will likely ask for around $5 million, Ashwood said.

“It would be ridiculous to think we won’t have any more disasters,” he said.

State transportation engineers who are documenting storm-related damage to the state’s highway system have identified 84 locations where flooding caused damage, Angier said. The estimated cost of repairing the damage is more than $18 million, and the Federal Highway Administration has already approved reimbursement of $8 million, she said.

“We anticipate more, and they do too,” Angier said. The federal agency reimburses up to 100 percent of the cost of an approved highway repair project, she said.

“This was a once in a 300-year flood that we got in Oklahoma,” Angier said. “We’ll have to look everywhere and find funds.”

Engineers have identified another 261 locations on county road networks that received storm and flood damage with an estimated repair cost of $9.5 million, Angier said. The FHA has approved reimbursements of $2.3 million and officials are reviewing the state’s request to cover additional repair costs, she said.

The federal agency has not set a deadline for the state to report all storm-related damage and it could take years for officials realize the full cost, Angier said. Road and bridge failures that occur months after the rain stopped could still be traced back to the event.

“Once it happens and you check into the reason, you can relate it back to floods,” she said.