Weathering the Storm

Last week residents across the state of Oklahoma faced below-freezing temperatures and large amounts of snow that brought with it multiple consequences.

From frozen water pipes, hazardous road conditions, school cancelations, and potential blackouts, residents of both Geary and Watonga had multiple things to deal with.

In Watonga, public work employees, police officers, and residents did what they could to help out.

Emergency Manager Robert Daugherty worked with Fred Teply, a deacon for the First Baptist Church, to set up the church as a warming station for residents of Watonga that may have been without heat.

“We only had three people come in, but it's a good thing that they did. They had some medical issues and they didn't need to be sitting around in a mobile home,” Teply said. “They would have probably succumbed to frostbite or hypothermia. When you get to that point, it's not good.”

Many residents took to Facebook to ask about road conditions to certain areas, people who could plow their driveways, and to share their gratitude for the people who had come to help them.

One such resident was Elyssa Harrison of Watonga. After a visit to her mother’s house, Harrison arrived to see her driveway covered in snow that reached up to her knees. As she began shoveling her driveway, she was greeted by a few people who were happy to assist her.

“When I started to get tired, just in time Michael Hardman pulled up and he helped by packing the snow down so I could at least get my car in the driveway. Micheal said, ‘Go up the street and turn your car around.’ Just at that time, officer Doug Jackson pulled up and asked if I had a shovel,” Harrison said. “Doug then started to shovel my driveway… Doug drove my car up the street to turn it around and he got stuck. The city guys got there just in time to help… I thank everyone that helped out during this time.”

A loss of power was also on the minds of residents as multiple power companies warned their customers of the potential for controlled service interruptions that would have left them without power. The Southwest Power Pool electric grid covers 14 different states across the middle of the continent. SPP is the provider of electric companies such as OG&E and Cimarron Electric Cooperative who also warned customers on the possibility of controlled service interruptions.

On Monday, Feb. 15 OG&E set a record on the amount of electricity being used on the grid because of the low temperatures across the state.

“Record-high demand on this power grid, combined with the shortage of natural gas supplies across the entire nation really caused a lot of pressure on the grid itself,” OG&E Lead Communications Specialist David Kimmel said.

Implementing service interruptions to save power wasn’t OG&E’s first choice. Kimmel said they took multiple steps so that customers are the last ones affected.

“Prior to the implementation of any kind of controlled service interruptions like we saw earlier in the week, we take several steps before it ever gets to that point to try and mitigate other types of demand before it ever gets to the customer,” Kimmel said. “All of these steps were taken, but we got to the point where the demand on the sys tem was just too great. We had to implement some service interruptions in order to protect the grid from having any kind of catastrophic failure.”

Reanna Goodnight of Watonga was one of the few residents who experienced power loss due to the controlled service interruptions.

“We tried to figure out what was wrong. I got on Blaine County Talk to see if it was just us or others as well, and that’s when I found out about the rolling blackouts,” Goodnight said. “I was shocked that on the coldest day of the year in the last 20 plus years, they stopped our ability to stay warm!”

Goodnight, whose power is provided by Cimarron Electric Cooperative, lost power on Thursday, Feb. 18, which led to her having to deal with frozen and broken pipes, and solutions for keeping her family and her livestock warm.

“We live on a farm four miles south of town and so we have goats, chickens, and ducks. Our goats are a part of our livelihood as we breed, show, and sell them, so protecting them is very important,” Goodnight said. “As the snow moved in, we had to get all the goats into the shelter and locked up so that they didn’t freeze to death. We were getting all the livestock put up before the first round of snow started. The temperature dropped so fast that it was almost impossible to stay warm while trying to keep the water from freezing.”

Becky Bedwell, the Ag educator for the Blaine County OSU Extension office, noted that most of the livestock around the area are cattle and that having a baby calf in February is normally not a problem; however, because of the weather experienced last week, Bedwell said there had been a higher fatality rate than normal.

Keeping livestock warm becomes an important task for those who own animals. Making sure they have some sort of shelter, providing them with windbreaks, keeping their water from freezing, and making sure the ice on ponds are broken so that livestock don’t walk on it and fall in are just some of the things that have to be done when faced with extreme cold temperature.

Over in Geary, Emergency Manager Cody McPherson talked about the precautions that the city took to try and be well prepared for the falling temperatures and snowstorms.

“There was some pre-planning done before the storm came in and there was actually some equipment brought in,” McPherson said. “Our public works director secured a generator that would have run the water plant just in case we had to face an outage.”

Geary’s Emergency Management Task Force worked to make sure residents' needs were met during the storm. They contacted the Red Cross, the Oklahoma Regional Food Bank, and Feed The Children in case the need for them arose.

Four warming stations were also prepared; however, only one was used due to the city of Geary never having lost power.

“We have really been working hard as a city response team goes, and it's a whole team to make sure that we pre-plan as much as we can. So when these events happen, they can go off without a hitch,” McPherson said.

McPherson emphasized his thanks toward the city staff for Geary as well as its citi zens for helping to conserve power and natural gas when asked.

“The reason that we were able to have such an uneventful event is due to their hard work,” McPherson said. “I've always said that the best way for us to help out when events like this happen, is by having people loving people. I encourage our citizens to continue to prepare and be ready for an event like this.”

Despite the difficulties faced, some residents tried their best to stay positive by having a fun day out in the snow with family or by just taking a drive around town.

“The only plus side of all of this was the snow because our kids made igloos and had snowball fights and my husband made a big pile of snow for them to sled down,” Goodnight said. “We have to remember to always look for the good in every bad situation. We were snowed in together, but it was time together we really needed.”