TULSA — Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum had strong words for parents who are letting their kids play in the river and floodwaters: “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“The most disturbing thing that I’ve heard in the last 24 hours from our first responders are parents letting their kids play in the river parks, on sidewalks, on the trails that are submerged underwater — kids that are waist-deep in this water,” Mayor Bynum said.
Not only is there a tremendous amount of dangerous debris in the water, but the river is moving incredibly rapidly, Mayor Bynum and State Senator James Lankford said at a 10 a.m. news conference.
“Children should be nowhere near this river,” Bynum said. “Adults should be nowhere near this river.”
The mayor warned that adults tubing in the river and playing in the shore are putting themselves in danger, and run the risk of being swept away and drawing first responders away from other communities in need.
“You’re going to be drawing first responder resources out who are supposed to be protecting the responsible people in our community who have been preparing for this,” Bynum said. “So I would say, I would ask, it is a historic thing, I like to look at it as much as anybody else But there as safe distances from which you can look at it, but you certainly should not be coming in contact with that river when it is flowing as fast as it is right now in an unpredictable way.”
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