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City of Dewey

Posted: Jun 20, 2019 9:31 AMUpdated: Jun 20, 2019 10:15 AM

Dewey Man Helped Perform Water Rescues in May

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Garrett Giles

A Dewey resident offered a helping hand while widespread flooding impacted many lives in Green Country, but not in the way you might think.

Melvin Offutt works on his fan boat at Peter’s True Value in Dewey. He used his boat to help local emergency personnel perform water rescues when historic flooding struck Washington County and the surrounding area last month.

"I had called a firefighter buddy of mine and told him to tell me if they had anything to please let me know, because I was more than willing to help," Offutt said, "I knew no one up here had an air boat and with the rain that we did get, I had a feeling that there would be some flooding. Woke up the next morning at about 8:00 o'clock and the phone started rining."

With water levels at an all-time high at Sand Creek and the Caney River as high as 18-feet, Offutt and company stayed busy. Call after call came in. A total of 40 hours were spent in the fan boat and approximately 30 people were rescued.

"Most people were happy to see us," Offutt said, "Some didn't like the noise, but they were happy to be getting out of their houses."

Offutt also rescued animals from the flood waters. In one instance, Offutt helped a couple that was in need of medical supplies. When he felt like he did everything he could to help locally, he took his fan boat to the Glenpool area.

"There weren't a whole lot of people down there," Offutt said, “There were a couple where we did wellness checks or were just making sure that people weren't in the house."

Contact was lost with them when electricity and phone lines went down. Cell phone batteries also died in that time. There was also some panic as barges broke loose and headed for the dam at Webbers Falls.

"It was chaotic, people thought the dam would break," Offutt said, "But thankfully everything worked out and we live to go another day."

While Offutt has helped with water rescues in places like Houston after Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017, he said it felt humbling when it came to helping his neighbors in Oklahoma last May.

The fan boat will need some work now that the water rescues are a thing of the past.

"We'll break the boat down this winter," Offutt said, "We'll have to flip the boat upside down and put new poly on the bottom. That is about a year earlier than we anticipated and it's about a $5,000 hit, but we didn't do [the rescues] for the money."

Offutt also noted how he wants to put new exhausts on the boat. In the meantime, Offutt is preparing for the 2019 BAA World Bowfishing Championship. That takes place in Wynona, Minnesota next week.

This is the first time for Offutt to be involved in the World Championship. He said he is ready to get back to fishing now that the waters have receded.

The Dewey resident also runs a fishing guide and bowfising service called "Aquatic Adventures." He said high waters caused him to put his bowfishing trips and services on hold until the waters go down.


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