Lets Keep the Arkansas River In Perspective

[Tony]

The 1986 Arkansas River Flood was a first test of the new stormwater management program. It also served as a reminder of the finite protection of Keystone Dam. Between September and October 1986, Keystone Reservoir filled to capacity, forcing the Corps to release water at the rate of 310,000 cubic feet per second. Downstream flooding was inevitable. At Tulsa, a private westbank levee failed, causing $1.3 million in damages to 64 buildings. The city fielded its hazard-mitigation team and cleared 13 substantially damaged structures.

The 1984 Memorial Day Flood, the worst in the city's history, was Tulsa's watershed point.

After a muggy Sunday afternoon, a stalled cool front produced some 15 inches of mid-night rain, centered over Mingo Creek but also extending across most of the city. The results were disastrous.

The 1984 Memorial Day Flood killed 14, injured 288, damaged or destroyed nearly 7,000 buildings, and left $180 million in damages ($576 million in 2006 dollars). Mingo Creek alone accounted for $125 million of the damages.

The newly elected mayor and street commissioner had been in office for only 19 days, but both knew the issues well. In the darkest hours of the city's worst disaster, they pledged to make their response reduce the likelihood that such a disaster would ever be repeated.

Before daylight, they had assembled the city's first Flood Hazard Mitigation Team to develop the city's strategy.

Within days, a new approach to Tulsa flood response and recovery was born.

As ultimately completed, the program included relocation of 300 flooded homes and a 228-pad mobile home park, $10.5 million in flood control works, and $2.1 million for master drainage plans. The total capital program topped $30 million, mostly from local capital sources, flood insurance claim checks, and federal funds.

The worst flood within the past 20 years in Bixby occurred between Sept. 29, 1986, and Oct. 4 of that same year, when a torrential downpour dropped about 20 inches of water in Tulsa County.
To make room for massive amounts of water upstream, the Corps discharged 310,000 cubic feet of water per second from the Keystone Dam.

According to reports, Bixby had had the second highest number of homes damaged in Tulsa County, next to Sand Springs. In Bixby, 385 residences were damaged, and 19 homes were destroyed.

At the peak of the 1986 flood, 70 percent of the town was under water.
A contributing factor to floods in Bixby in recent decades has been the increase in residential and commercial development in the Bixby area.

"You take bare land, the water will permeate into the soil, but when you make rooftops, concrete, streets ... then all that water has to go someplace -- it's collected somewhere, and the Arkansas River has been the basin," Coffey said.


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The proponents of the Arkansas River plan would like Tulsa Taxpayers to believe 300 year floods only happen every 300 years when in fact 300 year level floods happen quite regularly in the Tulsa Metro area -- this is due to our geographic location along the edge of MESO storm boundaries   -- all the planning and construction in the world won't change the facts -- we are prone to floods -- we barely dodged a bullet this year as Keystone lake went to 107% capacity and ran OVER the flood control gates -- continuing construction in the floodplain really isn't a wise plan --- but lets spend the TAX dollars so we can do it all over again in ten or 12 years.

The latte cafe probably need poontoons so it will float as should any business/construct developed in a flood plain.

[Ibanez]

The water never went over the gates at Keystone this summer. I was out there every day with my wife taking the dog for a walk and though the lake was getting full it never topped the gates.

[Tony]

Don't know where you were BUT at 0800 hours on July 6 the elevation officially was 755.15 and crested at 755.22, the top of the flood control pool is 754 -- didn't last long as discharge was increased.  

It has taken all summer to reduce flood control capacity to less than 5% of flood pool - we still are not at normal conservation pool.

According to the "experts" this event wasn't a 300 year event -- but you can bet USACE can't control all floods --

[carltonplace]

Are you suggesting that the low water dams will create more 300 year flooding scenarios or that they will somehow affect the weather?

-or-

Do you have concrete knowledge that these dams will cause more flooding in case of a similar disaster?

-or-

Is this a scare tactic to get people to vote no based on blind fear?

[Townsend]

quote:Originally posted by carltonplace


Is this a scare tactic to get people to vote no based on blind fear?

It's Tony.  Read the rest of his posts.

[Tony]

NONE of the above -- I merely point out facts what people decide is up to them -- The Arkansas is a braided prairie river prone to flooding even with flood control -- will additional dams cause more flooding? -- I think in a big event they would be irrelevant (well the increased proposed elevation at Sand Springs may be relevant to Sand Springs) -- the proponents would like those who have not been through these events to believe otherwise --

Just pointing out that building next to a river has its own hazards and drains on the US taxpayer.

Just for some perspective average daily discharge at the height of the flood this year was contained to less than 80,000CFS (100 year flood) now imagine FOUR times that amount of water coming down the river -- all the trails will be washed away as will all the planned riverfront development -- that is a waste in my view. If you believe the Eyore proponents our weather will get more extreme  in the next few years (I for one do not subscribe to man caused global warming)

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by Tony

NONE of the above -- I merely point out facts what people decide is up to them -- The Arkansas is a braided prairie river prone to flooding even with flood control -- will additional dams cause more flooding? -- I think in a big event they would be irrelevant (well the increased proposed elevation at Sand Springs may be relevant to Sand Springs) -- the proponents would like those who have not been through these events to believe otherwise --

Just pointing out that building next to a river has its own hazards and drains on the US taxpayer.

Just for some perspective average daily discharge at the height of the flood this year was contained to less than 80,000CFS (100 year flood) now imagine FOUR times that amount of water coming down the river -- all the trails will be washed away as will all the planned riverfront development -- that is a waste in my view. If you believe the Eyore proponents our weather will get more extreme  in the next few years (I for one do not subscribe to man caused global warming)

None of the trails were washed away in '88, why would they be in a new event of that size? And, an event of that size is very unlikely as the corp learned from that event and that was evident this year. And lastly, in Jenks riverfront developments are built with the foundations a couple of feet higher than the high water mark of the '88 flood level, so it would take a lot more than the 300,000 cfs to flood them, I'm sure Tulsa will build in the same way.

[Tony]

No there wasn't anything washed away in 1988 -- nor would there have been[]

Keystone nor the corps can control 20 inches of rain in a twenty four hour period -- the point is we keep doing the same old thing expecting different results -- INSANITY

[Tiny]

you're not accounting for the bottleneck effect of the dams ... when you have a higher obstacle placed in a river or just a big rock for instance ... the water is restricted somewhat more than if the river was open and unrestricted ... with less volume being able to escape from the bank down to the top of the dam then a bad flood will be even worse up river from the dam as there's less volume going to be able to go through. just like in a small gutter say 1 ft wide and it's flowing to capacity ... place your hand or a rock that obstructs half or just 1/4 of it's flow and the 1 ft wide gutter will then overflow ahead of the obstruction. say that if the river is capable of handling 280,000 cfps and just stay within it's banks at that level and you restrict 1/4 of it then you now have 70,000 cfps that has no place to go but over the banks and out into the public areas around the river. It's likely going to be ristricted by a lot more than 1/4 at the sand springs dam if they're going to hold enough water in there for low flow periods. that right there is just simple math. the only way to make the river flow as much water as it currently does without running over the banks is to increase the width of the river by the same amount that you've restricted it ... if your dam is blocking 1/4 of the river's volume ... like if the banks are 10 ft high and you build a dam on it that's 2.5 ft high the only way that it can flow as freely as it did before the dam is to widen the river by 1/4 so if it's currently about 1000 ft wide you'd have to increase it's width by 250 ft in order to handle as much water as it did before the 2.5 ft dam went in ... but it's not likely that the dams will be so small as 2.5 ft ... they're likely going to be at least as tall as the zink dam and the sand springs dam will have to be a lot taller. with the dams in place the flooding damage will be a lot worse.

[cannon_fodder]

july: 6   755.15  754.76  1714656  10158    61882   0.160   49350   0.03  0.11

I'll be damed, it was over the flood pool.  not sure if that means overflow or not, but it was +1 foot.

Anyway, Nearly all of Jenks and Bixby are in the flood plain.  The refineries are in the plain.  The power plants.  Everything along riverside drive is.  Down stream town after town is in the plain.  

You can not live your life in fear of the worst case scenario. Sooner or later everything near water is going to get flooded, everything in an Earthquake zone will get shaken, and everything in Oklahoma will get hit by a tornado.. sooner or later.  It might be a good reason not to build a nuclear power plant there or a munitions plant... but its a really silly reason not to build parks there.

[TheArtist]

Actually the Jenks Riverwalk is designed with the expectation of a flood breaching the banks. The Parking lots in back are designed to purposely become a water channel. The new Condos will have parking underneath. Thats also why the new casino is built so far above ground. The first level of the entire casino is a parking garage so that when the area floods it will not do any harm to the actual casino floor.

[Conan71]

Here's a question I have not seen asked.  What happens to the living river part when we do have a monsoon season like this summer?  Seems like that would scotch any use of the water for a couple of months which is one of the attractions to some voters.  Would it be back functional with flows/level where they are now?

I'm still highly skeptical of this concept since I remember Zink Lake being touted as a public recreation lake and that never panned out.

[Tony]

Flood "control" in a FLOOD plain has allowed the building inside of that plain - there are Hundreds if not THOUSANDS of lives lost every year, US wide -Billions of dollars in property damage (see New Orleans) BECAUSE such flood "control" has allowed a FALSE sense of security-- yet we keep on building back up to river and creek banks. Mother nature has a way of over coming the best laid plans of engineers -- Why do we continue to ignore this fact?

A higher elevation dam at Sand Springs SHOULD be a genuine concern for those residents who live above the dam site -- I would expect their flood insurance would go up and property values to go down as a result of a changing Federal Flood boundary -- something to consider for those residents ---

[cannon_fodder]

Its starting to smell like you do not like the proposal so you will find any excuse to belittle it.

Here is some really real data:
http://ahps.srh.noaa.gov/ahps2/period.php?wfo=tsa&gage=tlso2&view=1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1&toggles=10,7,8,2,9,15,6

Highest stage ever was in 1986, next closest was in 1923 - nearly 3 feet lower and before dam control was implemented (which would have reduced it further).  Your notion of catastrophic flooding on a regular basis is simply unfounded.  At least historically speaking.

[Tony]

HMMM I just pointed out TWO damaging NON-controlled floods within TWO years of each other --- If you haven't noticed lately our weather is swinging between EXTREMES at the present epoch.

The CORPS control what they CAN -- there are plenty of weather extremes BEYOND their control --

I point out what INCOG has NOT addressed BEFORE the public -- Plan for the Worst and Hope for the best --

I agree DISASTERS will happen -- why exacerbate a known PROBLEM ? Why should my INSURANCE rates go up as a result of building inside a flood plain ? Just a few of the questions I would ask.