Repetitive flooding
The idea of flood-hazard mitigation and floodplain clearance came to Tulsa slowly, in the wakes of repeated floods in the 1970s and '80s. Perhaps the idea was carried in the flood of June 8, 1974, while Bob and Ann Miller celebrated their daughter's ninth birthday on the roof of their house, watching their cat drown.
It was not the neighborhood's first flood, and it would not be the last.
The Millers' house and some of the others had flooded repeatedly, almost since the day the neighborhoods were built in the 1950s, over and again during the 1960s, in 1970, in March of 1974, and now June 8 of '74. After the June 8 flood subsided, leaving some $18 million in damages, the Millers and a handful of other Mingo Creek flood victims met in the flooded living room of their neighbor, Carol Williams, in a Mingo subdivision called Clarland Acres. Neighbors also came from nearby Meadowood subdivision.
All agreed that something had to be done. They created a group to lobby for flood relief. They named the group Tulsans for a Better Community.
TBC's prospects were dismal. Flooding was an overwhelming problem throughout the city, thousands of buildings were floodprone, and piecemeal projects just seemed to make the overall problems worse. Tulsa was in a cycle of turning down bond issues, so few local funds were available; and the Corps of Engineers could not get a positive benefit-cost ratio to justify any Mingo Creek project funding. But TBC would not give up.
1974 flood
On September 19, 1974, Mingo Creek flooded again --- a smaller flood, but for some, the third flood in a year. This time the water rose during the latest of a series of heated citizens flood meetings with city commissioners. Mingo flood victims Carl Moose and Abbott Grant waded out of the flood, drenched, and stormed the meeting, demanding city action. Their protests made a deep impression on Tulsans, including the mayor and commissioners --- but the city had no flood management plan, and little prospect for developing or carrying one out. TBC began to pick up members from other floodplains, as well as non-flooded sympathizers, and a local political movement began. The group's platform rested on two planks: The city should comply with federal standards and regulate land use to avoid creating more flood problems; and the city should acquire and clear floodplain homes to correct existing problems. They met tremendous community resistance on both counts.
Bob Miller took it upon himself to travel to Rapid City to study that city's floodplain acquisition program after its 1972 flood. Miller made a slide show on his findings, and showed it to Mayor Robert LaFortune. It was possible, Miller argued, to move houses --- even slab-on-grade houses like those in his Meadowood subdivision --- and recycle them onto dry sites. Rapid City's funding was based on urban renewal, a federal program that no longer existed. (The idea echoed one proposed in 1972 by an urban renewal planner, who asked for $18 million to buy the Mingo floodplain --- but the concept was too radical for City Hall then.) LaFortune was interested; he asked city engineers to get a consultant working on a plan.By 1975, the engineers returned with a structural plan for what they called the most pressing problems on reaches of Mingo Creek. Their Mingo Creek Improvement Project would protect 700 houses from a storm the size of the one on June 8, 1974. The MCIP was a limited channel project --- but it included right-of-way clearance of 33 houses, including Miller's. Although TBC preferred a broader acquisition project, the city moved quickly to begin the MCIP.
The homes had been rebuilt before the acquisition occurred. Right-of-way cost: $903,265, including acquisition and $4,981 to pay actual moving expenses. More than $100,000 was recouped from the sales of structures, salvage, and rents.
The city's original goal was to complete the MCIP by May 1976. The target date proved ironic. By May of 1976, the MCIP right-of-way indeed had been cleared of 33 houses, including Miller's --- just in time for the 1976 Memorial Day flood.
1976 flood
Tulsans thought the 1976 flood was the worst they would ever see. Up to 10 inches of rain fell during a three-hour storm centered over the Tulsa headwaters of Mingo, Joe, and Haikey Creeks. Three people died, including two on Mingo Creek near Carol Williams' house. Total damages: $34,250,000, including $25.7 million on Mingo Creek. Now Williams took the lead in petitioning for floodplain acquisition.
Why, she argued, should the flooded houses be rebuilt on the same floodplains that had flooded so many times before, that would undoubtedly flood again and again? She and other flood victims begged to use their flood insurance claim checks, Small Business Administration loans, or disaster aid to help them relocate. 
Since 1974, the community had been deadlocked in debates over flood-control philosophy, in endless meetings and arguments over the merits and non-merits of regulations versus development rights, downstream channels versus upstream detention, structural versus nonstructural measures. TBC joined with other neighborhood groups to form a citywide Homeowners Coalition, which took on the issues with passion and vigor. Newspapers called the ensuing debates "Tulsa's Great Drainage War."
By the fall of 1976, development was frozen in various floodplain moratoria.
The Homeowners Coalition and developers were deadlocked in polarized opposition over policies. At a political and policy impasse, the city initiated a series of actions. Street Commissioner Robert Franden tapped private consulting engineer Charles L. Hardt to become the city's first hydrologist and city planner Stan Williams to draft city policies. By 1977 the city had made major strides, including developing a policy plan, adopting broad regulatory ordinances, and passing a flood-control bond issue.
Somewhere in those years, the Homeowners Coalition brought in Don Barnett, a fiery speaker who had been Rapid City's mayor during its 1972 flood. Barnett leaned across the table, peered at the City Commission, and trumpeted: "Sometime, Mayor, you have to bite the pickle. Sometime you've got to really recognize ... that this house by this creek is a mistake!"But the idea of nonstructural floodplain clearance was still too radical to work. The city established a partnership with the Corps of Engineers to work on a Mingo Creek project, although the prospects for federal funding were dim. City engineers assumed that Tulsa would have to build the Mingo project alone, piecemeal, as local funds could be obtained. Through special federal legislation, Tulsa was to be allowed credit or reimbursement for Mingo work undertaken since 1974 --- in the unlikely event that federal funding was ever approved. No U.S. federal water projects had been approved in years.
1979 program
Even though he no longer lived in a flood plain, Bob Miller in 1979 resumed lobbying the city for ongoing floodplain acquisition. Why not buy the houses and "recycle" them to dry sites, Miller asked. By this time, city and Corps engineers had general consensus on a preferred Mingo Creek structural project plan for 7-10 miles of channelization and 23 upstream detention basins. But Miller's ideas caught the attention of City Commissioner Norma Eagleton, who encouraged city staff to develop a proposal. They responded with a plan to purchase 30 houses in the Mingo floodplain, upstream from Meadowood. The land was in right-of-way needed for a detention basin they called "Porkchop," because it would be roughly porkchop shaped.
Acquisition funding could include community development block grants, on the theory that the area was blighted because of flooding problems. City commissioners agreed, and Tulsa's second major floodplain acquisition project got under way. Right-of-way cost: $1,787,084 for acquisition, including $394,993 for relocation costs in conformance with the federal uniform relocation act. More than $83,000 was recouped from sales of structures, salvage, and rents. Many houses were moved to a cleared urban renewal area north of downtown and resold. After the houses were cleared, the city engineer dispatched equipment to excavate the basin, on a rapid-fire schedule to be complete in May 1984. Again, the timing was fortuitous. Porkchop basin was cleared and excavated right before Tulsa's 1984 flood.