Claremore outlines $17 million tornado recovery tab and $387 million infrastructure backlog

At a state-of-the-city presentation, Claremore City Manager John Fieri provided detailed figures for tornado recovery costs and a broader inventory of capital needs, saying the city has spent millions and still faces a large unfunded backlog.

Fieri gave specific tornado-related expense categories and estimates, saying consulting, engineering, legal and building assessments totaled nearly $2 million; storm debris and storm restoration work were estimated at about $9.4 million; and other utility and restoration costs brought the city’s tornado-related spending to roughly $17 million to date. "FEMA doesn't prepay or pay for any of this stuff. You have to do all this. You have to front that money and then you go and you fight like heck and you hope you get 75% of it," Fieri said, describing the reimbursement process.

He told the audience the city had recovered about $1.4 million so far from FEMA and other sources and that even with full reimbursement the city expects to cover roughly $6 million of unrecoverable costs. Fieri also listed physical losses, noting replacements of 336 poles and about 40 transformers in the electric system.

Beyond the tornado response, Fieri outlined the city’s larger, multi-year capital needs: a 5-year capital program of roughly $67 million completed or underway, and an estimated $387 million in unmet infrastructure needs when extending the planning horizon. He attributed the large unmet figure to deferred maintenance across stormwater ($40 million), streets (about $150 million), electric distribution upgrades (potentially tens of millions), and a long list of water and sanitary sewer projects.

Major capital projects under way or planned that he described include a $28 million water-treatment plant upgrade (expanded capacity and green-sand filtration), a wastewater collection and treatment system master plan (professional evaluation budgeted at about $250,000 and nearing completion), a $5.2 million 2546 pavement project with city and county cost-sharing, and a planned $8 million rebuild/widening of Frederick Road including $4 million for utility relocation next year. He said the water-treatment project should be complete by the end of 2026.

Fieri also described electrical system improvements: SCADA installation on substations (a technology upgrade he estimated at about $100,000 for the system), substation overhauls, a distribution master plan underway with projected needs that could reach $50 million, and a pilot to refeed Baker Hughes from a nearby substation to free capacity.

He warned of the sanitary sewer collection system’s age and fragility, describing it as "in horrific shape" with lift-station equipment and aging gravity mains in need of replacement. Fieri said repair and replacement of two recently failed pumps would cost roughly $160,000 to repair but close to $1 million to fully replace.

Fieri stressed the scale of deferred work and said the city has been using combinations of in-house crews, loan proceeds (the city borrowed $10 million in 2019 and $10 million in 2020 at low interest rates), reserve funds and restricted penny revenues to make progress. He said the proposed general-purpose penny on the April 1 ballot is intended to diversify revenue so the city can leverage borrowing for larger one-off projects and reduce pressure to shift costs onto utility rates.

The manager closed by encouraging public review of the city’s published audit and performance materials and inviting feedback at upcoming state-of-the-city sessions.

Votes at the meeting: none — presentation and Q&A only.