Tag Archives: Oklahoma

Earthquakes Rock Oklahoma, Kansas, Oregon

A series of earthquakes were felt in the United States Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning.  

A magnitude 4.0 earthquake was reported Wednesday afternoon 43 miles from Lakeview, Oregon, according to the Geological Survey.  The tremor occurred at 5:50pm Pacific Time.  In the last 10 days, there has been one other earthquake of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.

This morning residents in Oklahoma were awakened by a 4.7 magnitude quake that is reported to be the largest in that state since 2011.  The earthquake was felt from Norman, Oklahoma, to central Kansas, and from the Texas Panhandle to Missouri, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported.

The epicenter was 8 miles southwest of Cherokee, Oklahoma with a depth of 3.8 miles.  

“It was a quick jolt with windows rattling with [the first waves], then 5-10 seconds later, [the second waves] rattled windows and shook appliances and computer monitors,” said AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions Meteorologist William Clark, who felt the earthquake in Wichita, Kansas.

Local radar picked up thousands of birds that took off as the quake hit.  

Three other earthquakes were reported overnight in the area Thursday: a 3.1-magnitude at 3:46 a.m., a 3.7-magnitude earthquake at 6:03 a.m. and a 3.4 magnitude earthquake at 7:25 a.m. The 3.1 and 3.7 magnitude tremors were centered 9 miles west of Cherokee near the Kansas border. The 3.4 was centered near Crescent.

It is unclear if there was any damage or injuries at this time.

A strong undersea earthquake also struck off the coast near the Solomon Islands, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. These islands are located east of Papua New Guinea.  

The bureau initially reported that an earthquake of 7.1 had occurred at 5.31am ADET, which would be classified as a major earthquake, but the intensity was later reported as 6.8, which is considered strong.

The quake struck 119 kilometres south west of Dadali, in the Solomon Islands, and 176 kilometres north west of the capital, Honiara.  There are no reports of injuries and no tsunami watches or warnings issued.  

Oklahoma: World’s #1 Earthquake Area

A state agency released a report on Tuesday claiming that Oklahoma is now the number one earthquake area of the world.

According to the Enid News and Eagle, Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) spokesman, Matt Skinner, stated that there has been 15 earthquakes in the Medford area since Saturday. He added that the world is currently going through a seismic phase.

“In North America, Oklahoma is very unique and unique in the world, in the sense that it’s concentrated so much in just one area,” said Jim Palmer, OCC director of public information and manager of consumer education.

And because state officials see this as a very real problem, the commission’s Oil and Gas Conservation Division announced a plan to help reduce the risk of induced earthquakes in the area.

The oil and gas industry now gives seismic activity data to the Oklahoma Geological Survey who uses the information and turns into data that the OCC can use. This helps the OCC find disposal wells that could be causing seismic activity due to water being injected into the basement rock. And the reason the water was disposed of in the first place was because it was saltwater that contained natural constituents like arsenic and lead that could infect surface water.

“You really don’t want it out on the surface. You want to put it back down the hole. So, that’s done in the name of protecting groundwater, it’s protecting underground drinking water supplies and it’s worked quite well for a long, long time,” Skinner said. “However, now, we have a new thing to worry about, which is induced seismicity.”

And while the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is trying their best to reduce the amount of earthquakes in the area, Skinner admits they still don’t have all the details.

“All we have is data,” he said. “In terms of this phenomenon, very little is really known.”

Ten Commandments Removed from Oklahoma City Capitol Grounds

In the quiet of night, the controversial Ten Commandments monument, located on the grounds of the Oklahoma City Capitol building, was removed.  A state hired contractor began removing the monument shortly after 10:30 p.m. The removal comes after the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision in June that the display violates a state constitutional prohibition on the use of public property to support “any sect, church, denomination or system of religion.”

Originally authorized by the Legislature in 2009, the privately funded monument was erected in 2012, bringing about a lawsuit from Bruce Prescott, a Baptist minister from Norman who complained it violated the state constitution.

“Frankly, I’m glad we finally got the governor and attorney general to agree to let the monument be moved to private property, which is where I believe it’s most appropriate,” Prescott said Monday. “The first sermon I ever preached was on the Ten commandments.  I am just opposed to it being on public property.”

Its placement at the Capitol prompted requests from several groups to have their own monuments installed, the list including a satanic church in New York that wanted to erect a 7-foot-tall statue that depicts Satan as Baphomet, a goat-headed figure with horns, wings and a long beard.

Office of Management and Enterprise Services spokesman John Estus said that the state is paying the contractor about $4,700 to remove the monument and take it to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs’ offices, a few blocks away.  Estus said the decision to remove the monument under the cover of darkness was made to avoid disturbing workers at the Capitol and to keep protesters from demonstrating while heavy equipment was being used to detach the two-ton monument from its base.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol had increased security around the monument earlier Monday, and barriers were erected to keep visitors from getting close to it.

Several conservative legislators have promised to introduce a resolution when the Legislature convenes in February to send to a public vote an amendment that would remove the article of the constitution that prevents the use of public money or property for religious purposes.

Woman’s Holiday Trip Leaves Her Quadruple Amputee

A woman’s 4th of July trip to Grand Lake has left her without parts of her arms and legs thanks to one tick bite.

Jo Rogers, a mother of two, took her family for a holiday getaway to Grand Lake in northeast Oklahoma.  When she returned home, she mentioned to family members she was not feeling well, thinking that she had picked up the flu during her trip.

The following day, family members rushed her to the hospital when Rogers said her hands and feet hurt.  Within hours Rogers was placed into a medically induced coma as her limbs began to turn black and blue at the tips and then spread up her arms and legs.

Doctors finally noticed a tick bite and discovered she had an aggressive form of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF).  While there is treatment for RMSF, it must be started in the early days of infection and doctors say that Rogers missed that initial time frame.

The initial symptoms of RMSF mimic that of a cold or flu with headache, fever, vomiting and muscle pain.  Oklahoma is one of five states where the rate of infection from the disease is three to 10 times the national average according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“She is still on a ventilator and being kept sedated to help with pain.  Although she will have insurance for a couple more months, her medical bills are mounting daily and will continue as she will be in the hospital for many more months with rehab, prosthetics and home and car renovation to accommodate her needs,” her family wrote on a GoFundMe page.

Oklahoma Court Denies State’s Appeal on Ten Commandments Monument

The Oklahoma state Supreme Court has refused to hear the state’s appeal of their decision to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state’s capitol grounds.

The ruling to reject the appeal had the same 7-2 vote as the initial decision that claimed the monument was unconstitutional.

 

The lawsuit against the monument was brought in 2013 by the American Civil LIberties Union of Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin was bold in her opposition to the court’s ruling.

“The Ten Commandments monument was built to recognize and honor the historical significance of the Commandments in our state’s and nation’s systems of laws,” Fallin said in a statement. “The monument was built and maintained with private dollars. It is virtually identical to a monument on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol which the United States Supreme Court ruled to be permissible. It is a privately funded tribute to historical events, not a taxpayer funded endorsement of any religion, as some have alleged.”

Strong Earthquakes Strike Pacific Ring of Fire; Oklahoma Shaken Up

Two major earthquakes have struck along the northern and eastern sides of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

The quake was a 6.9 magnitude quake in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands around 9 p.m. local time.  The quake struck around a depth of 14 miles about 60 miles southwest of the village of Nikolski.  A number of aftershocks were reported after the main quake.

There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The second quake struck in Papua, an island in Indonesia.  The 7.0 magnitude quake struck about 6:41 a.m. on Monday in a heavily forested area about 150 miles west of the region’s provincial capital of Jayapura.

A teenage boy reportedly was killed as he fell into a river he was fishing in as the quake struck.  Several buildings were reported to have significant damage.

“The quake was felt very strongly for four seconds,” said Indonesian disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. “Residents panicked and rushed out of their homes.”

Officials in the region said because of the strength of the quake and the mountainous area where it struck, landslides in the next few days are a very dangerous possibility.

Neither quake triggered a tsunami.

Meanwhile, the heartland of America was shaken when a series of quakes struck Oklahoma on Monday.

The first two quakes struck within minutes of each other Monday afternoon.  A third rattled the region later that evening.

The quakes were centered around 3 to 4 miles north-northeast of Crescent, Oklahoma.

The strongest, the second of the two initial quakes, registered at 4.5 on the Richter scale and was felt in Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas.  The evening quake measured magnitude 4.1.

Massive Bug Swarm Appears on Weather Radar

A swarm of bugs in northern Texas and southwest Oklahoma was so intense Wednesday that it appeared as a rainstorm on weather radar in the region.

Rangers at Copper Breaks State Park in Quanah, Texas confirmed the bug storm was made up of grasshoppers and beetles to the National Weather Service.

The swarm filled the air up to 2,500 feet and covered 50 miles.

Forrest Mitchell, Observations Program Leader at the National Weather Service of Norman, Oklahoma, told Popular Science that the fact they can pick up major insect swarms is a nod to the sensitivity of current weather forecasting equipment.

“It doesn’t take a whole lot of bugs to cause that on radar,” Kurtz said. “It’s not like biblical proportions. There was just enough out there that the radar picked it up.”

The Texas swarm was not the only major swarming of insects in the last week.

In Sabula, Iowa highway crews had to use winter snow plowing equipment to remove a swarm of mayflies from a bridge connecting Iowa and Illinois.

The crews not only used the plows to clear the bridge but laid down sand in an attempt to combat the slick conditions caused by cars crushing the bug swarm.

Officials say they will keep the lights on the bridge off during the next few weeks in an attempt to keep the bugs from swarming.

Senator Introduces Bill To Defund Planned Parenthood

Oklahoma Senator James Lankford has introduced a bill in the Senate that would cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood for one year while an investigation takes place over accusations the group is selling the body parts of aborted babies.

Senator Langford said the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 is a result of the video exposes by the Center for Medical Progress.

“This comes back to the ultimate irony that we would literally tear one child apart in an abortion with the assumption that that would ultimately help some other child in the future,” Sen. Lankford said.  “[They are] missing the significance of the child that is right there that could be helped by protecting their life. And then the doctor in this particular video gives the details of how … they would be careful to reach in and…kill the child in the womb so that they could preserve the rest of the organs. Because the kidney has value, because the liver has value, because the lungs have value, because the muscles in the legs have value.”

Langford told The Hill in a release he feels the public should not be forced to help Planned Parenthood in their actions.

“I am aware our nation is divided on the issue of abortion, but it is common-sense that we shouldn’t force taxpayers to assist the harvesting of human organs,” Lankford said in a release.

Langford told USA Headline News that he feels a one year hold on funding is more than reasonable event to supporters of the abortion provider.

“I’ve been very vocal in the past to say we need to take out all federal funding for Planned Parenthood permanently,” Lankford said.  “But at least to come back and place a one year moratorium during this investigation.  Why isn’t that a reasonable thing?”

Langford’s bill has a companion bill in the House that has been introduced by Tennessee Representative Diane Black.

Earthquakes Shake Oklahoma; San Francisco

The last 24 hours have shown active seismic activity in the Midwest and on the West Coast.

A significant magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck Oklahoma Monday afternoon near the town of Cherokee, OK.  The shaking of the quake was reported outside the Sooner State in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Texas.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) also reported a second quake striking near Pawnee, OK about half an hour later with a magnitude of 3.2.  Then a few minutes after the Pawnee quake, a second quake struck in the area of the Cherokee quake that measured 3.7 on the Richter scale.

The USGS said all the quakes were around three miles deep.

Local officials said there were no injuries or significant damage from the quakes.

In San Francisco, a magnitude 4.0 quake struck the San Francisco area on Tuesday.

The USGS says the quake struck around 2:30 a.m. near Fremont, or 35 southeast of San Francisco.  The quake struck at a depth of 5 miles.

No injuries or significant property damage was reported in the Fremont quake.

Oklahoma Governor: The Ten Commandments Stay

Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin is standing up to her state’s Supreme Court and refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments the court said violated their state Constitution.

The governor noted that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to reconsider the 7-2 decision which supported a challenge by the ACLU of Oklahoma.

The justices said the monument violated Article II, Section 5 of the state constitution:  “No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such.”

Legislators are pushing to allow a vote of the citizens to remove that passage from the state constitution.

“Oklahoma is a state where we respect the rule of law, and we will not ignore the state courts or their decisions,” Fallin said. “However, we are also a state with three co-equal branches of government.”

“Legislators and supporters of the monument intended it as a tribute to the importance of the Ten Commandments in our history and our system of laws,” Fallin added in a statement. “Celebrating the historical importance of religions and religious values is not a new idea. Our nation is steeped in references to God and the rights He bestows on all men and women.”

“None of these represent state endorsement of or support for any religion. They are celebrations or visual representations of our culture and events of historical importance,” she added.

Attorney General Pruitt noted that the monument is almost identical to one in Texas that the Supreme Court ruled constitutional.  The monument was erected by private donations, not with state funds.