Claremore woman says highway project left her fish dead, home cold and property a mess

CLAREMORE, Okla. — A woman who lives along the route for a planned highway realignment says the construction has forever damaged her property.

FOX23 reported Tuesday the Oklahoma Department of Transportation would be rerouting Oklahoma State Highway 20 south of Claremore, where it will meet up with the Will Rogers Turnpike at a new interchange.

Elizabeth Blackard lives as close to that future interchange as you can get.

“I’m all for improving everything,” Blackard said. “I believe in progress.” But she says it’s how the work has been carried out to reroute Oklahoma Highway 20 right in front of her property that has her longing for old times.

“It’s been heartbreaking to see my family farm destroyed,” she said. “Nothing’s the same anymore.”

She and her family have lived on 94 acres along a stretch of Flint Road east of the Will Rogers Turnpike since 1959. “I used to walk to both sides on the dirt road,” Blackard said.

Preliminary work began three years ago to start moving utilities to widen Flint Road to become the future alignment of OK-20. “Living through it has been one nightmare, after another,” she said. “I was without gas for a year after the gas company moved the lines… I’ve had my electric lines burst open. My first floor of my house was without power for a week.”

She’s documented it all along the way with pictures. They show she’s dealt with a blocked driveway, damaged underground cable lines and construction vehicles parking in her front yard.

With the once-thick line of trees separating her house from the road now torn out, noise from traffic and construction wakes her up early.

“Every morning it’s BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG,” Blackard said. Her fence has also been taken down and trespassers have taken note. “I just called the sheriff on one Sunday,” she said. Worst of all, she says, is what happened to her stock pond.

“We got an email from an attorney on a Friday, that said they will start draining the pond on a Monday,” Blackard said. Numerous bass fish, who had once called the pond home, were left behind, laying dead.

“My father built that house to look at a pond after his hard work. And it’s gone,” she said.

FOX23 reached out to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation whose spokesperson said they’re looking in to how Blackard’s situation has been handled.