Two families were evacuated from their homes by boat Tuesday as creek waters rose after constant rainfall continued to drench the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.
Officials in Oklahoma City and the suburb of El Reno reported rescuing families by boat as high waters encroached on their homes. There were no injuries reported in either instance.
A mother and two kids were pulled from the El Reno home, and rescuers made a second trip to the home to fetch the family's German shepherd dog, city public information officer Terry Floyd said.
"He was a big German shepherd. He probably could have swam it just fine," Floyd said.
Oklahoma City firefighters retrieved a family of five — a mother, two children and two grandparents — on the city's northwest side who could have been swept away by fast-moving waters if they had tried to leave the home.
More than a dozen roads had been closed because of impassable water and there were at least two instances in which vehicles had to be pulled out of high water, but no large-scale evacuations had been ordered after several inches of rain fell in the area in recent days.
The Oklahoma Mesonet recorded 4.7 inches of rainfall in El Reno, located west of Oklahoma City in Canadian County, in a 24-hour period and nearly 6½ inches at Minco in neighboring Grady County. Rainfall in Oklahoma City ranged from 1½ inches to nearly 4 inches in that time frame.
"We could have used a little, but we didn't need a gullywasher," said Jerry Smith, emergency management director for Canadian County, where El Reno is located.
The National Weather Service was calling for more rain across the state on Tuesday night, with the potential for several inches of rain in some areas. Flood warnings were issued for urban areas and small streams in Canadian, Kingfisher, Logan and Oklahoma counties in central Oklahoma.
"We're in a lull. We could get anywhere from a half-inch to an inch more, but overnight we could receive more heavy downpours. If it does that, we're looking at this all over again with the floodwaters," Smith said.
"If this doesn't recede, it's just going to be more of a problem."
Heavy rain also was falling in other parts of the state. In the last three days, Walters, in Cotton County in southwestern Oklahoma, has received 7.96 inches of rain, and Waurika, in neighboring Jefferson County, has received 9.65 inches.
The flooding occurred exactly one year after the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin brought heavy rains and flooding to Oklahoma, causing the death of a Kiowa tribal chairman and several injuries.
State Emergency Management Department spokeswoman Michelann Ooten said the Emergency Operations Center had not received any requests for state assistance but was keeping track of flood reports. Four presidential disaster declarations were issued for flooding in Oklahoma last year, Ooten said.
Smith said emergency officials were monitoring a cluster of about 50 homes near the El Reno rescue in case more evacuations were necessary.
"If the water keeps rising in this area, it could potentially get into some other homes," Smith said. "Right now, we've only got one family that's evacuated and probably a couple of others that might be minorly affected by it.
"The potential is there for the water to rise, and if it does that, then we're looking at a more serious problem with getting maybe 10 or 15 more families out of there if it keeps up."
Smith said some homes in the area known as Banner along State Highway 66, the former U.S. Highway 66, were on higher ground. Some residents opted to stay in their homes because they owned boats, Floyd said.
"There's others that are probably affected, but at this point they don't want to leave," Smith said. "We're kind of watching the weather and seeing what it's going to do. We're expecting some more torrential rain overnight, and if that happens we might have to take some measures to evacuate more families outside the area."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
