Two Earthquakes Knock Out Power To Parts Of Cushing

Plagued by several recent earthquakes, now there is a new concern for the town of Cushing - keeping the power supply up and running.

Two quakes Thursday night knocked people into the dark. News 9 reported it as breaking news, and now we know exactly why these quakes triggered the outage.

"The first one was we had a 4.0,” Cushing Emergency Management Director Bob Noltsenmayer said.

It shook the city's power plant so hard the power went out to half the town for about 20 minutes Thursday evening. That was about 8:16 pm.

"And then at 8:59 we had the 3.4,” Noltensmayer said. “Pretty much back to back."

The breakers had to be reset at the plant.

"The breakers have sensors of them and so much movement they automatically shut down,” he said.

Surprisingly it is the first time this has happened in Cushing.

"We live on the second largest fault line in the United States,” Noltsenmayer said. “We have two additional fault lines. One to our north. One to our south."

Because of analysis of disposal well and seismicity data around Cushing, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission made a few changes to some area wells.

Friday, another well was added to the list making two disposal wells shut down and bringing those that have cut injection volumes to four.

"Some of the fracking some of the injection has some things to do with it. I don't blame that to all of it,” he said. “I think mother nature is talking to us.”

No one was hurt, and no major damage was done, but we're hearing from several of you who felt the quakes and some who now have sheetrock damage in their homes.