Saturday, April 29th 2017, 5:22 pm
People are stuck with nowhere to turn near the small town of Hulbert, near Sequoyah State Park.
In the area, a part of State Highway 80 is starting to look more like its own lake than a road.
"A way of life out here pretty much,” said resident Lonnie Bowlin.
As severe thunderstorms roll through, people who live near Hulbert aren't surprised to see floodwater rushing over the roads. But, it's more than they've seen in a while.
Cherokee County District Two road crews worked for about an hour Saturday morning to clear tree limbs and debris off 4 Mile Road near Ranger Creek.
"These guys that work with the county, they really work hard to keep these bridges clear,” said Bowlin. “But they can only do so much, and it'll just be a matter of time before this one is back up where you can't cross it again."
Sure enough, the water came rushing back hours later as the storms stayed strong.
A couple miles away on State Highway 80, all the water and road closures are a familiar sight to Wayne Renton, who said parts of the road have already been closed for the past week.
"It's part of the lake right now,” he stated.
Saturday's storms made things worse, but not the worst he's ever seen.
"Three or four years ago when we had a lot of flooding, it was closed for about three months,” Renton recalled. “And there's people that live on past this, and when it gets that high there's even a couple of families that are pinned in between two places that's under water. They actually can't get out."
And to anyone who is stuck with nowhere to turn around, Renton said you may be there a while.
"I bet it'll get a lot higher than this before this is over with,” he said.
People who live in the area said they expect the road to be flooded for several weeks.
April 29th, 2017
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