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Kimberly Jenkins Watonga Republican
The sun may be shining and temperatures back to normal now, but an unusual October ice storm last week left hundreds without power, schools closed and trees across the county damaged.
Area residents went days without power, and the severity of the damage was significant.
Watonga City Manager Larry Mitchell said the city responded “extremely well” given the weather conditions. The first 24 hours of the ice storm were really bad, he added.
The city’s light and water department serves about 1,400 people in the city, Mitchell said.
The city estimated about 1,000 customers were without power that first 24 hours, he said.
About two-thirds of them had power restored within a few hours, he said, and over a 3-day period about 99 percent were back online.
“I think we did an excellent job,” he said. “We pulled people from other departments to help. We all worked together to get the city cleaned up and power restored.”
As of noon Friday, Cimarron Electric was still reporting 453 outages in the Watonga zip code. That accounted for 37 percent its customers in the zip code. In Blaine County, there were 620 outages, about 22 percent of its total customers in the county.
Cimarron chief operating officer Jeff Hyatt said any outage is bad.
“But I would say this was a very bad outage, considering the amount of damage,” he said.
Areas in the Cimarron coverage territory were hit hard by the sheer weight of the ice.
“There was a lot of ice on those lines,” he said.
In Watonga, there wasn’t a lot of damage due to the ice.
Rather, the problem was caused by damage in the sub stations, he said.
“Those substations had no electricity. Everyone who was on those substations, was down power.”
The victories will come slow, Hyatt said. It won’t be a total rebuild, but a lot of rebuilding has to be completed.
Power outages weren’t the only lasting effect of last week’s ice storm.
With an early ice storm like this, there’s not a lot that people can do to prepare to save their trees, Oklahoma State Extension ag and 4H educator Greg Hartman said.
“Certainly, an ice storm in October, before trees lose their leaves, there’s nothing you can do to prevent the damage,” he said.
Usually, these types of storms occur in January or February, when the trees have lost their canopy, he said.
In Western Oklahoma, trees are more suited to wind, not ice.
“With some of the damage I’ve already, people will need to cut those damaged limbs back,” he said. And then maybe additional pruning again in February.
Depending upon the damage, trees might not look presentable for years.
A lot of trees will be salvageable, he said. Other trees, though, residents will have to make some hard decisions.
“People don’t like to think about (having to cut down trees),” he said. “People love their trees, but they can be hard to grow and take care of. People will have to come to realize, with really extensive damage, they’re not going to make it.”
Trees are pretty resilient, Hartman said.
“We are probably luckier in Western Oklahoma because of the drought, that meant the canopies weren’t as big and thick,” he said.
Mitchell said as of Monday Watonga residents had dropped off over 2,000 tons of trees and branches at the main street collection site across from the Armory.
“We’ve hauled away 273 cubic yards of debris,” he said.
The city’s collection site will be open for about another week, Mitchell said.
“After closing our Main Street site, we’ll do a run around town to do a final cleanup of tree debris,” he said.
Hyatt, meanwhile, said Cimarron customers have been very understanding.
“They’ve watched the news, read the stories in the papers, understand how bad things are and how much ice was received,” he said. “They want their power on but understand it’s a process.”
People have contacted Cimarron and asked how they could bring food, Gatorade and snacks to the workers, Hyatt said.
“They’ve been great.”