Storm Damages Lake Draper Dock

By Alex Cameron, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- No one's really sure right now if it was a tornado or just high winds associated with that storm that visited the western shore of Lake Stanley Draper Wednesday night, but whatever it was, it made a mess of things.

More on News9.com: Teams Survey Anadarko Storm Damage

Downed tree limbs were everywhere Thursday, but the real damage was out on the water. The posts that held one of the boat docks in place snapped.

"They're not solid structure docks, they're floating docks, so it just floated around," boat owner Dennis Knowles said.

Knowles was happy to learn the stray dock wasn't the one his boats were tied to.

"Yeah, I've got a 25-foot pontoon down there and a 27-foot cabin cruiser down there," Knowles said.

Boat owner Collie Hutto wasn't so lucky.

"I have a 39-foot houseboat," Hutto said.

She got a call not long after the dock holding her boat got loose.

"And then I started notifying everybody else immediately and by 4:00 this morning we already had three or four boats pulled," Hutto said.

By late Thursday morning Oklahoma City police had begun towing all the remaining boats to the nearby launch ramp.

"Police departments gonna take the boats around here to the dock we're supposed to bring our trailers in and tow our boats out," boat owner Robert Anderson said.

In Midwest City, lightning, not wind, did the damage, setting this house on fire.

"We were actually across the street watching it going into flames and stuff, there was nothing we could do about it," Cathy Elliott said.

Similar feelings of helplessness were felt at Lake Draper, but also that typical Oklahoma optimism.

"It can be repaired, it's just a boat, is all it is," Elliott said.

Ms. C, as the people there know her, says she thinks her boat has a little bit of damage, but for the most part all the boats out there were undamaged.

Oklahoma City officials say engineers looked at the dock Thursday, but they aren't sure yet whether they're going to try and re-secure it, or perhaps look at installing a new dock.