Update #1: Our County Emergency Management Director spoke with ODOT and learned it is their intention to keep the bridge open and they do not anticipate having to close down the entire bridge. However, if that becomes necessary, both ODOT and TXDOT have alternate routes planned and would post them on their websites.

Based on info we had earlier this morning (and it could have changed....I didn't check the latest river flood warning) the river is near crest now. At that time they were forecasting it would crest around 1 p.m. at 41.9'. We're almost there, we hope. Then it should begin to recede as long as no more rain falls in its watershed relatively soon (and I don't believe any rain is expected west of I-35 down here in southern OK for at least the next few days).

People with whom I've spoken who have crossed the bridge today describe it as a frightening experience with the water so close to the bridge itself, but ODOT would not leave the bridge open if there was any danger.

Here is some pretty incredible aerial video from the CBS affiliate in Dallas: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/06/19/high-rising-red-river-could-shut-down-i-35-corridor/

Glad to know you all seem to be okay. So sorry for the people who aren't okay due to Bill.

Sure puts things into perspective. We walked behind our small lake's dam to see where the water came out of the drawdown and I was amazed at how fast the water was flowing through the creek that carries our excess to Wewoka Lake. Today I took a detour on my way to shop for groceries and saw more water flowing over Wewoka Lake's spillway than I've ever seen before. The property across the road from us sold recently and they are trying to clean up the mess previous owners left. One four wheel drive truck was mired down to the chassis and had to be pulled out with a winch truck a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday, the trash service truck got stuck trying to pull out a big hopper full of debris and had to be pulled via wrecker truck. (The hopper stayed!) We are lucky compared to what's happening across the state.

Ugh. One of my granddad's elders once had to ride a horse to town for medicine when the creeks were up around Ringling and Orr. The story was told to illustrate that this man could be both tough and brave.

Sorry for the late update as our internet wasn't working most of the day, which was an issue for about 10 days after the May flooding too.

The river crested and has begun falling. At its worst, it looked like it was about 6" below the bridge. Y'all can just imagine all the drama in a community where people often live on one side of the river and work on the other. Fear. Excitement. Rumors. Panic. It was a strange day around here to say the least.

Even after the southbound slow lane was reopened, traffic crawled along. Some people (including news media) stopped their vehicles in the middle of the bridge so they could shoot video or take photos, aggravating other drivers who threatened to kick their.....well, use your imagination here. Law officers were dispatched. There was at least one minor vehicle accident. There were lots of nervous people who had to get across that bridge despite their fear of water that was so high and running so swiftly. Hopefully that all is behind us now. However, the river will fall slowly, so folks nervous about the water being so close to the bridge may remain nervous for a few more days.

The photos and videos of the raging river are incredible but I think seeing it in person is even more incredible. Normally in the summer months in general, and in drought years in particular, the Red River becomes a shallow river and you can walk across it without getting very wet at all. Families camp out for a week or more at a time on sandbars in the middle of the river with no fear that rain will fall and the water will rise. To go from that to what we have now is truly mind-blowing. It isn't just high, it is wide and reaching far up into flood plain areas, closing down roads, cutting off access to some folks' homes. Getting back to normal will take a while, but now that the excitement should be receding right along with the river levels, we can start the slow march back to normal life.

When we crossed the bridge this morning, it looked like the water had fallen quite a bit. In the flood plain land adjacent to the river, the water/mud line on the trees a great distance from the river showed the water there had fallen a couple of feet in that flooded field already.

The water is scary high, but you now can see daylight between the adjacent railroad trestle bridge and the river water, which is an improvement over yesterday.

When we were returning home an hour or two later, a gigantic box had somehow made it underneath the bridge and was being carried downstream. I cannot imagine what it was. It might have been concrete, and was pretty big---probably as big as a VW Beetle. It must have been pushed under the bridge somehow by the force of the flowing water.

As the Lake Texoma water backs up into local tributaries, more and more creeks are coming up into roadways and more bridges on local roadways are closing down. I've heard 3 reports of new closed bridges on my radio in the last half-hour.

To add insult to injury, we have a 20% chance of rain today and tonight and a 40% chance tomorrow.

I hope to get back to some normal gardening activity in the cool early-morning hours tomorrow if it isn't raining. I have a lot of harvesting to catch up on.

The pictures of the water running so close to the bridges was unreal. It looked like some thing out of a end of the world movie. However, I know that to you guys living in it, it's all to real. Hope you miss the forecasted rain. We had some showers try to make a run at us yesterday evening. I think with the wet conditions we will be dodging showers for a few days.

I hope ODOT takes a close look at those bridges after the water recedes. The damage has to be extensive. That box/concrete that Dawn mentioned being forced under the bridge had to tear up the underside at some point and you know that was not the only non water items forced under that bridge. Just the flow of the water is destructive.

I'm ready for some dull summer weather. You know what the forcast is without ever turning on the TV or checking your favorite weather site. I know we will be watering and griping but I am ready for a little dull time.

Hope everybody's life gets back to normal soon.

I'm ready for some dull summer weather too.

I was thinking that Lake Texoma might set another new record crest after the one set earlier this month with the prior flooding, but the last I heard, it is expected to crest at just about the same amount.

You know, it feels surreal to watch this. The water went up, up, up the first time and then slowly fell and we were starting to feel more relaxed like the worst was over. Then, Bill arrived (uninvited, might I add) and did his thing, and the water rose so fast that it still is hard to believe. Now, we are hoping it falls just as quickly.....except, all that water has to roll on downstream so ultimately it hurts a lot of people as it journeys onward.

Yesterday was Rumor Central and Panic Central on both sides of the river, with many rumors that the bridge had pillars that were shifting, etc. I cannot believe people fall for that sort of false information. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that ODOT and TXDOT would shut it all down in a heartbeat if anything of that sort was even remotely likely to be occurring.

I did notice today that, in the last river bottom pasture land we see before we cross the bridge into Texas, the mud/water mark alongside I-35 almost came up to the pavement. Had it reached the pavement, I think ODOT likely would have shut down the highway. After seeing the high water/mud mark, I think we came a lot closer to that shutdown happening than I ever would have thought was possible.

I'm all in favor of boring nothingless, at least weather-wise, for the rest of the summer, but I doubt we'll get that lucky. You know what happens next---we get insanely hot and humid and it will be so miserable to be out there working in the yard, garden....or on the farm or ranch. What a summer to remember, but I fear what we'll remember is how awful it was. At least my garden is producing well, so I cannot complain that the time spent planting it and tending it was wasted.

I planted things today that I would normally plant in late April or early May. I had only put a portion of my peppers in when the May rains started. The ones in cups looked as good as the ones that have been in the ground for weeks. The arrival of the heat and sunshine is certainly making a difference here.

merrybookwyrm, You still have to be pretty tough, independent and determined to live out there around Orr because it is just so remote. Even with modern-day vehicles, it can take police, firefighters and medics a long time to reach you out there in the boondocks even without flooding or road washouts which just compound an already difficult situation.

Western Love County, including Orr, and the adjacent portions of Carter and Jefferson County were hit really hard by this last storm. They got a lot more rain and flooding out there than we had here in southcentral Love County. There's a point where you even stop having cell phone service once you get out there, and where the fire and police radios cut in and out and have so much static that they are pretty much unusable for communication. In this day and age, it is shocking to me that there's still areas that are not so remote, mileage-wise, but that still are far enough out there that communication is spotty.

Carol, I love the sunshine and it helps the garden a lot, but the heat and heat index numbers kinda take the fun out of it. We gardeners and our gardens are going to be roasting hot this week which will help plant growth but make life miserable otherwise.

I've been so busy with other things, or flooded out of the garden, that I am so far behind on harvesting and canning that it isn't even funny. Today I'm going to sort, wash and freeze about 10-15 gallons of tomatoes that I can use later on to make salsa. I just don't have time to make it this week. I've already got that many frozen, so they're really piling up and still there's tomatoes piled up on every flat surface in the house. I am more behind than usual. Partly it is because of the peppers. I have hot peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, etc. for making salsa, but the sweet peppers are so far behind it isn't even funny. If I picked every sweet bell that is even half-sized, I might not get enough for one batch of Annie's Salsa. I did hold the pepper plants in cups forever during the May flooding before finally getting them planted and they are way behind everything else. The jalapenos were quicker to set fruit and start making up for lost time but the sweet bells and poblano plants are just sitting there. Apparently 33+" of rain in the last 7 weeks does not impress them at all.

I've been trying to just stay caught up on making plum jelly, but last week I didn't have time to make jelly so I just extracted the juice and froze it. I can make jelly any time, but I don't like the fact that I'm stockpiling everything in the freezer. I wanted to have all the plums finished before the peaches began to ripen, and we're only 2-3 days away from the first peach harvest (if I can keep the birds out of them, which seems like a losing battle). I'm hoping to pick a day later in the week, maybe on Wed or Thurs, where I block out any and every other thing and just focus on thawing that plum juice and making all the jelly. Oh, and I have more plums to harvest sometime today. It is cloudy and there's been rain (and flash-flooding) to our southeast. The last thing any part of this region needs today is more rain.

Lake Texoma's rise has slowed dramatically in the last day, so I am not sure its crest will even match the record crest that happened around June 1st. The Red River is falling fast, and everyone here is relieved by that.

I never got okra, cucumbers, winter squash or purple hull peas planted, and I need to do it now or not do it at all, but I'm so distracted by trying to deal with the tomato and fruit harvest that I don't know if I'll do it. I might wait and see how the watermelons and muskmelons I planted before last week's heavy rain/flooding do. If they don't survive or quickly become diseased in the waterlogged soil, I might not bother planting anything else.

At least all the cracks in the ground healed up, though I am sure the silty ones on the surface will return soon.

Dawn