With all of the rain eastern and northern Oklahoma has received in the past week, the Muskogee area is bracing for major flood stage on the Arkansas River due to inflow from precipitation and water release from area lakes.
The Arkansas River at Muskogee is forecast to crest at 38' (10' above flood stage) on Wednesday, up from 27' yesterday. This would likely place the flood among the top five highest crests recorded at this location.
The record flood reading was 48.2' on May 21st, 1943 (before Ft. Gibson Dam was completed), and the second-highest on record was 39.6' on October 6th, 1986.
Areas below an elevation of 510' are likely to be flooded, if the crest is at 38' as forecast. The map below gives a rough idea of the areas that are below 510'. Dark blue is the normal water levels, light blue covers the area subject to river flooding. Evacuations are currently underway in some of these areas.
Click here to view the map larger. I hope to get the east bank done as well, but the USGS maps I can find all use contours of 20' instead of 10' as on the Muskogee side of the river (I assume it's because the Fort Gibson side has more topographical variance).
from MuskogeePolitico.com
