Southern Oklahoma Towns Devastated by Ice Storm

By Jon Jordan, NEWS 9

LINDSAY, Oklahoma -- The power outage situation in southern Oklahoma is slowly, but surely improving. The town of Lindsay was one of the hardest hit areas by the recent ice storm. The entire town lost power and for some it could take days before they get electricity.

Electric crews from Stillwater, as well as contractors from as far as Houston, have converged on the town in an effort to restore power to the some 3,000 residents.

John Branch, the Mayor of Lindsay, said "this is the worst I've seen." According to city leaders the town has already suffered financially from revenue sales being down and the ice storm has only made the situation worse.

City Manager Bill Mitchell called the ice storm, "a financial killer."

"Gonna have to go back and re-look at everything. I don't have an estimate now but it's big," Mitchell said.

The mayor said if Lindsay doesn't get federal and state help soon it will take a tremendously long time for the town to recover. The worst part is cleaning up debris from things that made the town unique.

"Lindsay is one of the most beautiful towns in Oklahoma for trees," said Branch. "It's just hurts having to see what we've seen here because that's gonna change our landscape."

In addition to Lindsay other areas like Bray, Criner, Elmore City, Paoli and Purcell also continuing to work to get power restored to their residents. According to Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., which services a large part of the area, the number of electric polls down is estimated to exceed 500.

Mitchell said if everything goes as planned they could have power restored to 40 percent of their residents within 24 hours, but admits they continue to have set backs and it could be longer.