Emergency Operations Center Activated In Tulsa County

Tulsa County activated the Emergency Operations Center Monday morning as the first thunderstorm came through.

Monday, May 20th 2019, 1:33 pm

By: Emory Bryan

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Emergency Operations Center Activated In Tulsa County

Tulsa County activated the Emergency Operations Center Monday morning as the first thunderstorm came through.

They're mainly concerned about high wind, and flooding.

As a precaution against local flooding, here in Tulsa--yesterday--the corps of engineers reduced the flow out of Keystone and that's dropped the river, some, to make room for storm runoff that is coming.

The river flow has been high for a week, but now that Keystone has dropped some; the concern with today's weather is that a hard rain into the creeks around the river could cause flooding there.

The change means the river channel will have a little more room in it, at least until the severe rain threat passes by.

Joe Kralicek, Tulsa County Emergency Management Director, says "Fortunately the Army Corps has dropped the release rate on the river down to 60,000 CFS, which does help alleviate some issues, but we're going to continue to watch this very closely and we could see some isolated street flooding in areas that are problematic and prone to that."

The Emergency Operations Center is downtown and, now that it's activated, they expect to be there for the next 36 hours, or until the flooding and tornado threats wind down.

Emory Bryan

Emory Bryan is a general assignment reporter for News On 6. He began his news career covering the school board for his hometown radio station and worked on the newspaper staff in college before making the switch to television. Emory Bryan joined the News On 6 team in 1994.

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