Road closed for more than 24 hours after Wagoner County deputies say man tired of flooding took pipe

TULLAHASSEE, Okla. — Wagoner County deputies said one man in Tullahassee taking matters into his own hands to prevent flooding caused a road to be closed for more than a day.

Deputies said a man pulled a tinhorn pipe out of the ground, causing traffic to be shut down in that area for more than 24 hours, all because he was tired of what it was doing to his yard.

“We’ve seen signs damaged in collisions, we’ve seen guard rails on the side of the highway damaged in collisions, but nobody has actually come out and purposely pulled an item from underground and destroyed the road to where it was impassable that I can remember,” Wagoner County Undersheriff Mark Secrist said.

Secrist said the County maintains East 223rd Street South.

The pipe was initially put there to help with drainage.

“The guy I guess was upset about some flooding on his property and he decided to take matters into his own hands and remove the tinhorn from the road and making the road impassable,” Secrist said.

Wagoner County Emergency Management shared photos showing the removed pipe and the hole it left in the road Monday.

“It was out of commission for over 24 hours and the bad thing about that is emergency vehicles couldn’t get down that road, we had to find alternate routes, luckily there was no incidents that happened that required emergency assistance, but that’s not always the case,” Secrist said.

Secrist said they are working with the District Attorney’s Office to see what charges need to be filed.

If the repairs cost more than $1,000, the man who removed the pipe could be looking at felony charges, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

“Depending on the money involved to repair it if it goes over a certain amount it’s actually a felony,” Secrist said.

Secrist said for things like this, don’t take matters into your own hands.

“Don’t take it into your own hands because right now he had a situation that where if emergency vehicles had to get down that road they couldn’t have and it may have caused lives luckily nothing like that happened thank goodness but we just say don’t take it into your own hands,” Secrist said.

The road itself is back open.