June 8th 1974 Tornado Outbreak

[XYZ]

Popped up in one of my feeds late yesterday and just saw it.

Any of you old folks remember this?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_outbreak_of_June_8,_1974

 

[SlugSlinger]

That was the year Mingo Creek here in Tulsa flooded the place where we lived and I think the year that Tulsa realized they needed to address the Tulsa flooding.

We moved into some apartments then to some acreage.


Found this:

BLOG: June 8, 1974 Tornado Outbreak & Flash Flooding​

By: Brandon Wholey
43 years ago, a late season severe weather outbreak hit central and eastern Oklahoma. The day started with a flash flooding event followed by supercells with tornadoes during the afternoon and early evening. Tulsa recorded up to 10 inches of rain.

In total, the system produced 22 tornadoes. 8 were rated F-3 and 1 was an F-4. The Fujita Scale was later modified and now we use the EF scale or Enhanced Fujita Scale.

The first tornado actually occurred near the National Weather Service Office in Oklahoma City. Then the tornado threat transitioned to over the Tulsa area by the 7pm hour. Tulsa had 2 tornadoes rip through between 7:13pm and 7:38pm. Both were rated F-3.

The twisters took the lives of 16 people and 2 others were killed because of the dangerous flash flooding. 300 were injured and the weather caused millions of dollars in property damage.

https://www.kjrh.com/weather/blog-june-8-1974-tornado-outbreak-flash-flooding#:~:text=Tulsa had 2 tornadoes rip through between 7:13pm,weather caused millions of dollars in property damage.

 

[SlugSlinger]

The flood of 1984 mentioned below took the life of a girl that I grew up with, although we were not close.​

Sandra Snow and her younger brother Mark were staying with her dad on Riverside in Tulsa. Here mom and dad were divorced.
From what I understand, the house was almost under water when they realized the flash flooding, The dad was trying to round up the kids and get them out of the house. He went to the room Sandra was in to get her out. She told him to get her brother and she would be right behind them. She didn’t make it and the thing that bothered me the most were the fingernail marks they found in the sheetrock on the ceiling in her room.

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How Tulsa Became A Model For Preventing Floods​

For decades, Tulsa planned carefully and imposed regulations to prevent the kind of devastating floods that used to make national headlines. Now other cities are noticing.​

November 20, 2017, 4:54 AM
This article is over 6 years old

National | NPR​

NPR Staff|

Neighborhoods and mobile home parks in Tulsa after the Arkansas River flooded in October 1986. (Austin Hellwig Collection | Tulsa City-County Library)normal
If Houston's record deluge during Hurricane Harvey highlighted the dangers of unchecked, sprawling development, then Tulsa — another city built on oil — is a showcase for the opposite.

For decades it has planned carefully and imposed wide-ranging regulations that aim to prevent the kind of devastating floods that used to make national headlines here. Other cities are taking note, as expanding development and a warming climate threaten to make flooding worse.

On a recent afternoon, Bill Robison parks his city-issued car in front of a modest, beige ranch house in east Tulsa to carry out a key part of the city's program. "That's the one I haven't been able to talk to yet," he says.

Robison is lead engineer for Tulsa's storm water program, and this is one of 80 homes the city is currently trying to buy and tear down. Over the last three decades, Tulsa has cleared nearly 1,000 buildings from flood-prone areas.

Typically, after people are flooded two or three times they're ready to sell out.​

Bill Robison

"Typically, after people are flooded two or three times they're ready to sell out," says Robison.

Sure enough, the woman who answers the door tells him the house flooded not long ago. In fact, it's flooded repeatedly in recent years, and changed hands a number of times. She's open to a buyout.

The great drainage war

Tulsa is surprisingly vulnerable to flooding, from the Arkansas River and a spiderweb of 36 creeks. In the 1970s and 1980s the city was hit by a string of damaging floods. Activists and the public stormed city hall, but builders and property developers fought plans to address the flooding. Local media dubbed the dispute "The Great Drainage War."

Then, in 1984, another flood disaster dumped more than a foot of rain, leaving 14 people dead and hundreds injured. It galvanized the city. That, and a change of administration, allowed one of the nation's most aggressive flood control plans to move ahead.

Tulsa's program is one of the few that accounts for urban growth. The city has built a network of drainage systems, creating green spaces that double as flood basins when needed. Robison pulls his car over and points one out.

"You can see there's a Frisbee golf course here, walking trails and just a nice open area," he says.

Tulsa's flood control plan includes multi-use drainage basins, like the athletic field at Will Rogers High School. It doubles as a detention pond for overflowing storm water. (Joe Wertz | StateImpact Oklahoma)normal
Tulsa also enacted strict rules on where and how homes and buildings are constructed — rules that go far beyond national standards.

Ron Flanagan, who helped write the flood control plan, says it can be tough mandating something that adds costs for developers.

"Elected officials are very sensitive to the development community's wants and desires and needs," he says.

To help pay for the program, the city added a fee to utility bills, which was, and remains, unpopular. But having a strict program also means residents get big discounts on flood insurance.

"If you don't have the local people on board you haven't got a program," Flanagan says. "The federal government can't enforce everything, and they have minimum standards."

Today, Tulsa's flooding problems are much smaller and officials say the prevention program has saved lives and millions of dollars. Other cities routinely reach out for advice. Even the State Department brings international groups to see the flood plan in action.

Still, Flanagan worries. The longer Tulsa goes without a catastrophic flood, he says, the easier it is to forget why the city needed to change its ways.

 

[SlugSlinger]

 

[TedKennedy]

I remember the tornados of June quite well. They hit just south of our house, skipped a few blocks and touched down again. We lost some shingles and sleep but that’s it. I was but a wee lad, and paid little mind.

The 84 flood was a whole nuther ballgame. I remember going to work that Sunday morning- I was one of very few vehicles on Memorial (mostly flooded). Got to my job at 21st and Sheridan and the water had been three feet deep in the shop. Pretty wild.

 

[dlbleak]

I was thinking that was the big Union City F4 but that was may 24 of 73

 

[KOPBET]

I was in boot camp. Missed it.

 

[SoonerP226]

The 84 flood was a whole nuther ballgame. I remember going to work that Sunday morning- I was one of very few vehicles on Memorial (mostly flooded). Got to my job at 21st and Sheridan and the water had been three feet deep in the shop. Pretty wild.

I remember the Memorial Day storm of '84. We stayed at my mom's folks' place out in far east BA the night of the storm, and my dad and I stayed up late watching the coverage on the little TV in the kitchen (which was odd, as my dad was always an "early to bed, early to rise" kind of guy). The guys on the TV were talking about how the radar said the storm was moving to the east at whatever speed, but it was building to the west and dissipating to the east, so it was effectively just sitting over Tulsa and dumping rain.

The next day we drove through Tulsa on our way to the annual get-together with my dad's family at Cleveland and Keystone, and you could see the high water marks on the walls next to the highways. Some of them were about eight feet above the roadway. There was one particular underpass with an abandoned late-'60s/early-'70s drop-top Corvette with the front of its convertible roof partially open. I thought it looked like he'd driven into the water at speed and the water had peeled it back, but it seems more likely that he opened it to get out, because, based on the high water marks, the car would've been completely submerged.

That was one wicked storm.