DEER CREEK, Okla. (AP) - For as long as Bobby Young remembers, when the heavy rains come, two tree-lined creeks that wind through low-lying pastures near his feed store breach their banks and leave N MacArthur Boulevard flooded.
That is all expected to change this summer, when a new 1,600-foot bridge spans the two creeks, Deer Creek and Walnut Creek, just north of D.C. Feeds.
“I’m glad they are putting the bridge in, and I think a lot of people are going to be happy,” Young said. “Before, it would flood and you couldn’t drive through.”
Depending on just how rainy the spring weather is this year, work on the bridge, a few miles south of Deer Creek High School, should wrap up by August, the Oklahoman reported .
The $7.8 million bridge work has closed the road since July, a road that connects the Deer Creek Schools administration building, high school, athletic facilities and an intermediate school on the campus near NW 206 and N MacArthur to the Oklahoma City limits to the south.
Lenis DeRieux, Deer Creek Schools’ assistant superintendent, said bus routes have had to be adjusted, but the bridge will improve the roadway where buses with children could not be driven into high water.
“Although it can be inconvenient at times, we’re grateful for the road upgrades as the upgrades are needed for safety and to accommodate our growing population,” DeRieux said.
DeRieux said Deer Creek Schools officials expect roadwork will always be ahead.
“In fast-growing rural areas like Deer Creek, we believe this will be a constant issue we have to face and we have become accustomed to making necessary adjustments,” she said.
Depending on the rain delays this spring, it is possible the work could be done on the bridge sooner than expected, said Lisa Shearer-Salim, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Work is on schedule, she said.
Workers began pouring concrete last week for the guardrail walls on the deck of the bridge, Shearer-Salim said.
Melissa Peachee Briscoe, who grew up on a farm where she still lives on the east side of the bridge on a hill overlooking N MacArthur, recalls a number of times vehicles were swept into floodwaters. Once in about 1965, a man and his son drove a pickup into high water and were swept out into an 80 acre field, she said. The man held a flashlight into the air and waved it from the top of the pickup where he waited with his son. Edmond firefighters sent a boat to rescue them, she said.
The new bridge is part of an Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s five-year, $926 million County Improvement for Roads and Bridges plan for statewide county projects, Shearer-Salim said.
Another major road improvement project nearby is along State Highway 74, about two miles east of the new bridge, Shearer-Salim said.
SH 74 is being widened between NW 164 and NW 206. The work, at a cost of about $22 million, will make SH 74 four lanes from W Memorial Road north to Logan County. More than 21,000 vehicles were counted in 2016 that travel on SH 74 through the area each day, she said.
And SH 74 is an alternate route for motorists to use with N MacArthur Boulevard closed 2 miles to the west.
Young, 61, has owned D.C. Feeds since 1992. He grew up in Edmond and used to buy donkeys to train when he was a boy with his father and the feed store was a horse sales barn. There were times in the past, he said, that all the roads near the feed store to the north, east and west flooded at the same time.
For now, the inconvenience of the bridge work will be worth it when the road doesn’t flood, he said. Even with the road being closed, his customers still find a way to make it to the store, he said.
“It is hard for people to get here now, but they do,” Young said.
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Information from: The Oklahoman, http://www.newsok.com
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