OG&E Repairing Power Poles After Weekend Storm

Severe weather continues to leave its mark beyond the month of May. This weekend, strong winds resulted in damage throughout northern Oklahoma City and Edmond. 

Most of that damage happened to power poles, and that has been keeping OG&E crews busy.

Some areas had more significant damage than others, though. Along Northwest 164^th Street near Rockwell Avenue, crews spent the morning replacing poles and restoring power to customers in the area.

“We actually had some very strong winds come through there and broke some poles,” said OG&E spokesperson Kathleen O’Shea, “both wooden poles and actually kind of knocked, bent, some of our aluminum poles, so we actually had significant outages as a result of that particular thing.”

O'Shea said seeing the wooden poles snap is not uncommon in storms, but their aluminum counterparts are another story.

“That is fairly rare,” said O’Shea. “I’ve seen it after tornadoes, or it has to be very, very strong straight winds or something to get those typically.”

The winds were not as cruel to the rest of the lines on the north side, but plenty of poles look precarious right now. As they lean, O’Shea said you can look for warning signs like cracks in the wood or lines pulled taut between poles, but the vast majority of them are still safe.

“Maybe it’s a new pole that’s recently been set and it’s not firmly in the ground, established like normal,” O’Shea suggested. “In that case, we want to come out and kind of straighten it back up a little, but basically just because it’s leaning, it’s not really a hazard.”

If you do see a power pole that is concerning to you, you can report it to OG&E by calling (800) 272-9741, and a crew will come and inspect it.