Oklahoma Update

Our friends in the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality provided this update on the recovery efforts in the wake of the severe tornados that swept through the Oklahoma City area earlier in the week – as well as continuing recovery from the earlier storms.

For the most part, we are working on debris removal from the May 19th and 20th storms,.   Water and wastewater services have been returned to all but one system that was heavily damaged in what was known as the Bethel Acres tornado.  The Steelman public water systems is currently pressuring up and doing their bacteriological sampling.  We hope that, by the end of next week, they will be operational.

After the May 31st tornado, we had all water and wastewater systems up and running within about 36 hours of the tornado.  We are now dealing with flooding issues and have several public water systems and wastewater systems that are impacted by floodwaters.  Weather forecasters are projecting a few dry days over the next week.  It is our hope that the drinking water systems will all be disinfected, and back up and running within the next week.  For another month, we will likely be continuing to work on wastewater issues related to the flooding; and, debris removal and cleanup activities will probably continue for another several months.”