Downstream at Lake Tenkiller, damage from the 2018 tornado and severe storms still needs to be repaired, according to Dennis Covey, lake manager for the Tulsa District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“About the time we got the contract awarded is when the flooding started,” he said. “They got some work done, all the trees are moved; and then the flooding started.”
Even when rainfall upstream on the Illinois didn’t cause great flooding, floods elsewhere in the region meant the dam needed to be closed early in the spring and water levels were high.
“There are no people on this planet that want a normal summer next year more than me and my staff,” said Covey, who took his position as manager at the lake just before the tornado hit.
State Climatologist Gary McManus said the quick rise to the river — and minor flooding and standing water across much of the region — is likely “just a hangover from what’s been happening.”
Northeast Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas have beaten annual rainfall records by incredible amounts, he said.
“Those areas had already beaten annual rainfall records in the first 11 months of the year by 10 to 15 inches, and they didn’t just beat records, they blasted them out of existence,” he said.