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OKLAHOMA CITY — Things aren’t as A-OK these days at southeastern Oklahoma’s A-OK Railroad.

Even the CEO of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Railroad Co., best known as the A-OK, spent Monday working alongside crews to clear miles of damaged track, according to staff answering the phone at the Wilburton-based company.

The railroad operates about 70 miles of line in Oklahoma, primarily between McAlester and the small town of Howe just shy of the Arkansas border.

Many of the state’s 3,600 miles of rail sustained damage from May’s record-setting rains, said Craig Moody, manager of the state Department of Transportation’s rail programs.

Earlier Monday, A-OK officials called to report that the rails it leases from the state had sustained at least $1.3 million in damage, said Moody. The same floods are estimated to have caused millions of damage to roads and bridges throughout the state.

“They’re shutting down because there’s so much damage,” he said.

A-OK’s staff referred comment to the company’s CEO, who couldn’t be reached for comment because he was out of the office Monday afternoon.

Preliminary damage totals reported by three freight rail companies have topped $1.6 million.

Much of the damage involves washed-out tracks where flood waters scoured the rock and soil base, as well as debris collecting on the rail lines.

BNSF Railway freight trains can no longer travel from Irving, Texas, to Tulsa because a section of track is covered by 11 feet of water from nearby Lake Texoma near Madill, about 120 miles south of Oklahoma City, said Joe Sloan, a spokesman for the railroad.

The track will remain closed until the water recedes and inspectors can see whether the waters caused any structural damage, Sloan said.

“There’s no way to shuttle it across,” he said.

In addition, BNSF, which operates more than 1,400 miles of track in Oklahoma, was forced to briefly close portions of track near Purcell and Noble after tracks washed out over the Memorial Day weekend, he said.

Sloan said the company said doesn’t disclose damage totals.

Union Pacific Railroad, which operates about 900 miles of track, was much more fortunate. Aside from a few wash-outs near McAlester, which led to some brief delays, no other damage occurred to its infrastructure in Oklahoma, said company spokesman Jeff Degraff.

The timing couldn’t be worse for many railroads and Oklahoma businesses as harvest season quickly approaches. Many farmers rely on the state’s extensive rail network, including more than 200 miles owned and leased by the state, to ship their products to market.

The state’s rail lines are also frequently used to ship oil, cotton and fertilizer. Moody said rail customers have to hire trucks in the interim to ship goods.

Any tracks that are operational are running slower than normal, he said.

“Inspectors physically have to get out and ensure those tracks are safe,” he said.

Technically the state isn’t responsible for repairing tracks — even the ones it leases — but in a nod to the importance of the industry to Oklahoma’s economy, Mike Patterson, state transportation director, pledged any assistance his agency could give.

He just doesn’t know what it will be yet.

“I don’t know what all we can do, but we’re going to do what we can to keep them operational,” he said.