Muskogee Crews Start Restoring Historic USS Batfish To Her Original Position

Nearly two years after Green Country's historic flooding, many people are still making repairs, including the USS Batfish in Muskogee.

2019's historic flooding floated the submarine off the ground, and moved it and now, volunteers are working to move her back to the original position where she was placed in the 1970s.

"The team already came in here and dug out a couple things and cleared this area for us already," said Victor Lezama. 

Lezama took over operations for Muskogee War Memorial Park in January and said they've been working to restore the USS Batfish back to her former glory.

“We've come up with a plan to where, believe it or not, we’re going to reflood this area to move her back to her original location after we level off the original location where she was at," said Lezama.

Lezama said they thought about leaving the ship where it landed, but ultimately decided moving the World War II ship back would be best for the longevity of the ship.

“It’s not easy to move a big, you know, a giant piece of steel just 300 feet over there,” said Lezama. “It takes a lot of coordination for the engineers, who are way smarter than I'm ever going to be, who are making those determinations on moving the sub back safely and not only that but permanently."

They've also decided to build a concrete platform and pedestals to prevent any future damage caused by flooding. They implemented this plan after taking a trip to Alabama to see the historic warship there.

“Our project manager actually went down to Mobile, Alabama, to see the USS Drum, which is a similar sub - same build, same weight - and they actually have it on concrete pedestals,” said Lezama. “They're off the coast so if that sub can withstand all those hurricanes, we believe that’s a plan we can implement here.”

One of the reasons the board is moving so quickly on this project is because they believe the nose of the Batfish is actually sitting on a sinkhole, meaning the 900-million-pound submarine could snap in half at any time.

“Only half the sub is currently sitting on land, so we've had to have a couple of emergency meetings with engineers to see how we can actually fill that area up to kind of stabilize it before the big work begins,” said Lezama.

FEMA is covering most of the cost for the project along with the City of Muskogee, but there are some expenses being paid for by the museum.

Because the project is government funded, the rebuild will involve a geological survey team coming out to look for Native American artifacts.

"This area back here, at one time actually housed over 12 tribes in Oklahoma so we want to make sure that if there are any archeological artifacts back here, that they are well preserved,” said Lezama.

The USS Batfish was sitting in the water for several days during the spring of 2019, meaning the bottom of the ship is now covered in rust and in need of major repairs.

Lezama said they also plan to make the ship more interactive as they move forward.

“It’s sad that people can't come through her right now because of the damage, but we look forward to reopening the doors and she'll be more beautiful to display than she ever was before,” said Lezama.