OG&E Says Outages After Severe Storms At Its Largest Since 2013 Moore Tornado

OG&E said the outages in the last 24 hours are its biggest in the metro since the 2013 Moore tornado. Crews have restored power to 50,000 customers, but over 40,000 more are still in the dark. 

According to the electric company, additional crews are in route from multiple states. By Wednesday, around 2,300 crew members will be working to restore power.

“These guys are working with electricity and we don’t want these guys tired,” said OG&E spokeswoman Kathleen O’Shea.

At the peak outage, around 110,000 residents were without power. OG&E spokesman Kathleen O'Shea said because of mother nature, work was delayed.

“In last night's storm there was a lot of lightning, so we couldn’t get crews out until lightning stopped,” said O’Shea.

She said because of powerful winds, trees were toppled into lines. Tackling the job has required double duty.

“What we're doing, we're sending tree crews out with our lineman so they can clear any trees out of the way for the lineman to get to work safely,” said O’Shea.          

Starting at 6 a.m. Wednesday, crews will be deployed, and while they're expected to get many residents back on, many will have to wait.

“We’re telling people we don’t have any estimate time right now, but we're looking at multi-day outages,” said O’Shea.                               

O'Shea said some jobs are much more labor intensive.

“Once you start getting into backyard type work where you're having to climb a pole, that just takes longer to get the power restored,” said O’Shea.