Thousands without power following Saturday storm and high winds
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) -- Strong winds caused damage across the state from Saturday night's storms with hundreds of thousands of people still without power late Sunday evening. Downed trees and powerlines snapped in half. OG&E said they are working to restore power as quickly as possible, especially with the high heat hitting the state this week.
"I heard a snap and I didn't think anything of it at first and then I looked out the window and of course the whole tree huge limb blocked the whole entire street," said Sherri Crutchfield, an OKC resident.
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Crutchfield said extreme winds caused her to not be able to drive down the street Sunday morning.
"We had a very significant storm roll through the entire state and much of our service area with damaging winds up to 80 mph all all across our service area," said Aaron Cooper, an OG&E spokesperson.
Cooper told News 4 they were working around the clock to restore power to residents.
The latest outages as of 8 p.m. were 42,180 for OG&E. PSO has 170,932 customers without power as of 8 p.m. There are 24,648 customers without power in rural parts if the state that use a different energy company.
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News 4 looked at some of the damage from the storm Saturday night and met Tammy Wolff, who was startled when a tree landed on top of her house.
"I thought we weren't getting any storms and then all of a sudden you can hear some wind and a big boom and it really startled me and of course scared my dog," said Tammy Wolff.
According to OG&E, there were more than 139,000 homes and businesses without power shortly after the storm swept through Saturday night. That number dropped by 74,000 in less than 24 hours.
"So we know it's frustrating not to know when your power is going to come on we're frustrated too but we've been out working and we'll continue to keep working until the last customers power is restored," said Cooper.
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OG&E said they have 3,500 people working to restore power throughout the state.
"This is the second storm in a week that's hit our service area but that's what we trained to do and that's what our line crews are experts at," said Cooper.
As the temperatures rise this week and power is still out for many residents, OG&E is sharing a list of locations you can go to and cool off. They want to remind customers to remember to drink water and find a cool area if possible when the high heat comes in.