OKMULGEE, Okla — After the severe storms many Okmulgee roads flooded and some closed for the safety of drivers.
While the flooded areas showed signs of improvement over the weekend, the floodwaters left a lot of work to repair the damage.
Tim Craighton, Director for the Okmulgee County Emergency Management, told 2 News, "by Sunday morning things should look a lot better than they do even right now."
He explained the Deep Fork River runs all the way to Oklahoma city which is why it takes so long to flow through.
“It just takes time for that to get down here and get through. It’s here and hopefully by Monday or so we will be back below flood stage," Craighton said.
Craighton said even though the flooding is going down, there are several hundred miles of damaged roads.
“It took a lot of the surface off of roads and we got a lot of culverts that are going to have to be replaced or repaired. Some bridges are gone that we will have to replace," Craighton said.
He said teams went out this weekend putting gravel back on some roads and grating other roads, but repairing everything will take a while.
“Getting some of the culverts ordered in because we don’t have that many on hand and some of the bridges it will take time to get the materials in to redo those so it will be months," Craighton said.
While the road conditions are improving, it's still not advised to drive on them until the "road closed" signs are taken down.
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