FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Drake Rice, Director of Member Services, 405/340-5047
Cities Assist in Ice Storm Recovery
City electric crews from the City of Claremore; City of Collinsville; Cordell Utility Department; City of Denton, TX; Duncan Power; Edmond Electric; City of Kingfisher; City of McPherson, KS; Town of Mannford; City of Miami; City of Perry; Ponca City Energy; City of Pryor; City of Prague; Town of Okeene; City of Siloam Springs, AR; City of Skiatook; Stillwater Electric Utility; City of Stilwell; City of Tahlequah; City of Wagoner; City of Wynnewood; along with several contract crews are working together assisting OMPA member cities in recovery efforts following the ice storm that affected most of South Central and Southwest Oklahoma.
As of February 2 at 8:00 a.m. approximately 14,412 OMPA member city customers remain without power.
The assistance is being coordinated through the Oklahoma Municipal Electric Systems (MESO) mutial aid agreement. This agreement allows for cities and towns to assist each other in storm damage. This storm has caused major damage to distribution systems and the Transmission System in the Southwest part of the State. This storm has also impacted the states transmission facilities in the Southwest that has led to extended outage times.
The hardest hit municipal electric cities have been Lexington, Purcell, Lindsay, Marlow, Duncan, Altus, Granite, Manitou, Frederick, Olustee and Eldorado. Many of the outages are due to the transmission system being heavily damaged from broken poles. At the height of the storm, 17 OMPA cities were without transmission service, affecting 36,550 retail customers.
Many people have experienced days without electricity and we appreciate the public being patient under the conditions they are experiencing. We ask that customers remain patient as crews are working as fast as they can to restore power in adverse weather conditions.
OMPA is a state governmental agency created by the legislature to serve cities and towns that own and operate their electrical distribution systems and is governed by the members. The Authority presently serves 36 municipally-owned electric systems in Oklahoma.
