Remaining outages to be fixed before weekend
Tens of thousands of Oklahomans remained without electricity more than a week after an ice storm caused one of the worst power outages in state history, but nearly all customers should have power restored by Friday night.
As of Thursday afternoon, OG&E reported nearly 77,000 customers were still without power. Line workers from around the country continued wide-scale repair operations to reconnect those customers, including more than 56,000 in Oklahoma City alone.
Lingering outages appear to be confined to cities in the Oklahoma City metro area. OG& E officials reiterated Thursday that they expected nearly all of their work to be complete before the weekend.
Any remaining outages after Friday would be limited to customers with damage to their meter base or weatherhead that must be repaired separately by an electrician before OG& E can reconnect power, said spokesman Brian Alford. Those repairs are the responsibility of the customer.
Street by street
Once power was restored to major electricity stations throughout OG& E's coverage area, crews were able to move into neighborhoods down the line and fix smaller connections. This tedious task, compounded by the sheer magnitude of the ice storm, has contributed
to the long wait in restoring power to everyone whose home or business is still in the dark.
For example, Alford said, power lines in older neighborhoods might run through easements in a backyard, surrounded by trees.
“If those trees are grown, are mature, it makes it difficult to get into those easements. We have to physically bring up a powered dolly to reach the infrastructure,” Alford said. “It is time-consuming.”
OG&E's restoration estimate has customers back on the grid after 12 days. The last major ice storm on record that affected the power grid was in 2007, when some customers were out of power for at least 14 days.
“We're seeing an exponential increase in the amount of damage from that storm to this storm,” Alford said. “So we're actually going to make the necessary repairs on a much larger storm on a shorter time frame.”
Thousands of line workers are still on the ground in Oklahoma, including workers who traveled here from other states. Some crews had to return home, but Alford said OG& E has welcomed additional crews to help fill those gaps.
Grid enhancement
While many customers sat without power on Thursday, Oklahoma's utility regulators unanimously approved OG& E's $ 810 million plan to upgrade the power grid in Oklahoma, which the company said will help mitigate future mass outages like this one.
The plan, which was finalized in October weeks before the storm hit, calls for customers to share the burden of upgrading the grid by paying more on their electricity bill.
The average customer would see an impact of approximately 52 cents per month for 2021 and 2022. Additionally, the company would undergo a review process with stakeholders and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission before implementing higher rates.
According to the plan approved Thursday, those rate hikes would not apply to customers on the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), or to customers receiving a senior citizens discount.
Rate increase also would not be applied to industrial customers who connect to the power grid upstream from the distribution network that will see those improvements.
Internet outages
Along with power, Oklahomans may have seen their internet access affected after the ice storm. Christine Martin, a spokeswoman for Cox in Oklahoma, said their customers were impacted. Crews have spent the past week assessing the damage, but repairs had to wait until power lines could be fixed.
“There are still areas that we have not been able to gain access to, but the majority of our customers have now been restored as well,” Martin said.
An AT&T spokesman told The Oklahoman that its network is operating normally. The company will contribute $10,000 to the American Red Cross of Oklahoma to support the organization's efforts providing Oklahomans “with secure, safe and socially distant shelter, and other services,” Jim Kimberly said.
OG& E also donated $500,000 to the United Way of Central Oklahoma to help it coordinate relief efforts through its nonprofit partner agencies, which include Heartline 2-1-1 and Upward Transitions. Hundreds of adults and children have been sheltered at local hotels because of the donation, OG&E said.