Deadly Storms Leave Widespread Damage, Outages Across State

LaShauna Sewell, News9.com

EDMOND, Oklahoma – Residents in Edmond, Guthrie, Piedmont and other parts of central Oklahoma woke up to damage and debris after another night of powerful storms.

The same storm system also killed at least one person in southern Mayes County near Locust Grove.

Severe weather tore through the state late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. The storms brought much-needed rain, but they also caused unwanted destruction.

News 9 crews discovered a lot of damage in Edmond. At Kickingbird Square near E. Danforth Road and N. Bryant Ave., the powerful winds ripped the roofs off businesses and scattered debris in the parking lot. The wind also ripped the steeple off Waterloo Road Baptist Church at E. Waterloo and S. Coltrane Road.

The storms knocked out power to thousands of people. Many residents in Piedmont were still without electricity due to Monday night's storms. Tuesday night's severe weather swept through and set back OG&E crews who'd been working around the clock to restore power knocked out during earlier storms.

In the Oklahoma City metro, about 19,000 customers were without power Wednesday. More than 27,000 OG&E customers statewide don't have power. OG&E could not say when electricity would be restored to everyone.

"We're assessing damage we've had. There's been extensive damage," said OG&E spokesperson Karen Kurtz. "We have poles down. We've had quite a few substations hit by lightning. We can't really put out an estimated time of restoration yet. "

See complete list of OG&E power outages

The storms have delayed the first day of school for one district. Stroud schools don't have power, so students who were supposed to return to class Wednesday will now have their first day of school on Thursday, Aug. 11.