Too smart for scam: Flood victim hopes her story helps other property owners | Local News

The white, single-story house that sits on the south side of Oklahoma 51 just half a mile west of Oklahoma 97 has been uninhabitable since May 2019, when it was inundated with floodwaters that rose nearly to the ceiling.

“The house had 7 feet of water in it,” Jackson said. “It was already sitting 3 feet off the ground, and the water was 7 feet high inside.”

Jackson ignored the text message. She didn’t know at the time that the communication was only the first attempt to cheat her out of her rightful buyout offer from Tulsa County

Although Jackson, 78, had lived her entire life before the 2019 flood on the acre-plus property — land that has been her family’s for about 95 years — it was only partly sentimentality that made her so dismissive of the possible offer.

She just couldn’t imagine it would be worth anything to anyone else.

About a half-mile west of Jackson’s place is the Meadow Valley subdivision, and a little farther west of there, across the highway to the north, is the Town and Country Addition.

Flooding woes along that section of Oklahoma 51 are no secret. Even so, two floods stand out above all the others.

“In my lifetime, there was only two — the one in ’86 and 2019,” Jackson said.

“And 2019 was worse because it contaminated the land,” she said, referring to the waste from septic tanks and other debris that washed eastward toward her place from other area homes.

After that, “the city said the only way to live there was to elevate the house 8 feet off the ground.”

“I was angry — very angry. Because it made no sense to me to elevate it that high at my age,” she said, imagining out loud the elevator she’d need just to get in her house.

Although an elevator was never in the plan, Jackson had recently done some work on the house before that May 2019 flood.

“I had retired and remodeled the inside of the house,” she said. “I had paid off my car and truck and was getting ready to enjoy retirement.”

But in the flood, “I lost my house and lost my truck. It was just devastating,” she said.

Jackson lived with a couple from her church for three months before moving into a house in Sapulpa.

It’s the same house where, one day recently, she looked out to see a man peering over her gate and looking around her yard.

She asked him how she could help him, and he said he had been told that she owned the property along Oklahoma 51.

He also claimed to know that the house was worth only about $9,000. He said the county was going to offer her only about $7,000 through a buyout but that if she’d sell it to him, he’d give her $40,000.

Jackson wasn’t born yesterday.

“I’m going to wait to see what I find out from the buyout,” she told the man.

The encounter left her feeling vulnerable, and that’s what has Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith and others working on the buyout program so upset — that folks who already have lost so much are now in danger of losing even more to unscrupulous people trying to make a quick buck.

Tulsa County officials announced in April that $14.7 million in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding would be made available in the form of buyouts for residents whose homes were damaged by the May 2019 catastrophic flooding.

The floodwaters along the Arkansas River submerged hundreds of homes and businesses from west of Sand Springs east toward downtown Tulsa, as well as elsewhere across the metropolitan area and state.

All told, the flooding wreaked havoc across a dozen counties in four states, with more than a thousand homes inundated, including more than 300 in and around Sand Springs.

Losses totaled $3 billion, officials have reported.

Lacie Jones, a project manager for Meshek & Associates, which is overseeing the flood buyout process for Tulsa County, said Jackson isn’t the only flood victim to have been approached by someone not affiliated with the buyout, though the issue isn’t widespread.

“I do think that they’re going to start coming out of the woodwork as we get further into the program,” she said last week. “Unfortunately, there’s just bad people out there that want to take advantage of the system.”

And the system, unfortunately, is giving them plenty of time to scheme and scam.

Officials held four public meetings in April to gauge interest in the voluntary buyout. For much of the rest of the year, the process will involve determining the project’s scope, identifying applicants, acquiring cost estimates, prioritizing recipients and conducting any needed environmental reviews of property.

It’s uncertain exactly when homeowners could expect to receive offers on their properties, but project officials said in April that they were optimistic it would be within a year.

Jones said last week the response to the buyout program “was greater than what we expected. We were concerned that people would be leery and not interested.”

But at present, “we have 158 voluntary participation applications,” she said, adding that “right now, the need appears to be over $33 million.”

She said the county is “looking at all funding options” and trying to supplement the $14.7 million currently in the kitty, adding that perhaps some FEMA money might become available.

But in the meantime, Jones wants to keep rightful recipients from being scammed.

“If they’re not contacted by someone from Meshek & Associates — really, that is the only entity that is going to initiate the program,” she said. “If they have not heard from us, then they should call and check with us.”

Jones said any agents from the firm attempting to communicate with homeowners will have badges and business cards identifying them.

“We’re also going to try to keep the county’s social media up to date” so people can know what phase the process is in, she said.

Jackson, meanwhile, said she felt like it was important to tell others what happened to her as a cautionary tale.

“I just would like other people not to be scammed,” she said. “I would certainly hope that other people don’t take in some of this nonsense.

“I have been so stressed, and my (blood) pressure’s running so high,” she added.

“I feel like I have a black cloud over my head, and it’s raining all the time.”