Residents Along Grand River Still Cleaning Up After December Flood

If you live below Grand Lake, you probably haven’t forgotten the flood gate sirens at the Pensacola Dam sounding last month, alerting you to more water being sent into the Grand River.

People who live below the dam are used to flooding, but nothing like this. They're still cleaning up now after the historic event.

Neighbors who live near the Highway 82 bridge in Langley remember getting an early wake-up call from the Grand River Dam Authority on Dec. 28. Heavy rainfall pelted the area.

Jay Patterson didn't expect the water to rise so high.

“I was already in my house when I noticed water coming up to my steps, and then when it got to my top step, I called the Spavinaw Fire Department and they come and got me by boat," Patterson said.

When the floodwaters of the Grand River receded, he came back to horror in his home.

“I can handle this one, but if another one happens, I'm done," Patterson said.

Gene Smith and his wife live down the road right on the banks of the Grand River.

“It's hard to believe that that water can come that high, but it can get there and it can get there in a hurry," Smith said.

Smith remembers seeing the river hitting the top of the Highway 82 bridge.

Now he's trying to salvage what's left of his home, the flood waters churned all of the stuff stored in his garage like a washing machine.

There's signs of water damage all over the home.

“My daughter come in here, it was dusty, dark and she was going to get some of this silverware (out of the cabinet), and she picked up a live shad out of this and this is been in there since the waters been up," Smith said.

Patterson is still in shock.

“I was the last one to leave,” he said. “Because I didn't think, no way can it reach my house, but it did,"

The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management says it expects to finish up the disaster assessments sometime this week.