Efforts to save 2 boys are too late in Lake Overholser tragedy

Last Updated on July 11, 2023, 9:43 PM | Published: July 11, 2023

OKLAHOMA CITY (Free Press) — Four boys’ fascination with powerful floodwaters rushing out of the floodgates at Oklahoma City’s Lake Overholser resulted in the tragic deaths of the youngest two.

The two surviving boys told firefighters that the group went to the lake to go fishing but decided to enter the rushing waters coming out of the biggest floodgates on the dam, according to OKC Fire officials. It was then that the youngest two were swept away downstream toward 10th street.

The Oklahoma City Fire Department (OKCFD) launched a concerted effort, along with the Oklahoma City Police Department, to find and rescue the two boys carried downstream.

City Water Department workers temporarily shut the floodgates to allow first responders to conduct the search more effectively.

However, by the time the two were found, they had been overcome by the waters.

The body of one was found around 8:15 p.m. and the other about four hours later.

Fire officials said that one was found about 800 feet downstream and the other about 2,800 feet, which would have been beyond the 10th Street Bridge six blocks south.

Fire and Police join efforts

According to District Chief Scott Douglass, PIO for the OKCFD, their department launched three rescue boats and the Oklahoma City Police Department launched two of theirs in the search for the younger boys.

Police used a drone and their helicopter in the search that went past midnight.

The two older boys were stranded on a concrete ledge near the dam and were resuced by firefighters in boats.

Intense rains produce floodwaters

Heavy, sustained rains over the last several weeks in OKC and west of the metro have produced floodwaters making their way to the City of Oklahoma City reservoir via the North Canadian River that flows into the lake from western Oklahoma.

The Lake Overholser Dam is made of poured concrete and is well over 100 years old. It was Oklahoma City’s first water reservoir and is still a part of a series of reservoirs the city maintains.

The North Canadian River flows to the Lake and can either be partially diverted to the lake or past it down a canal to the dam.

In wet summers like this one, floodwaters flow directly into the lake from surrounding lands, and they arrive from western Oklahoma by way of the river.

Even if the river is completely diverted, the waters have to have somewhere to go.

Thursday afternoon, waters were still rushing out of the larger floodgates on the eastern end of the dam that handles the North Canadian River waters. Also, other gates were open on the west end to keep natural floodwaters of the lake from putting excessive pressure on the aging dam.

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