Mutual Aid Assistance Provided to Oklahoma
A dangerous and disruptive early season ice storm with freezing rain combined with high winds led to devastation for a large portion of Oklahoma on Oct 25. The winter storm, causing 76,300-plus outages and leaving 353,00 consumers without power, has since been named historic because of its early fall timeline.
On Monday, Oct. 26, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt issued a Disaster Emergency Declaration for 47 Oklahoma counties due to the severe winter storm that left up to 2 inches in ice accumulations. The impacted electric cooperatives reported structural damage that included broken crossarms and broken poles. High winds also caused galloping lines in areas where power lines were already coated in thick layers of ice. Heavy ice accumulations caused trees to snap and limbs and branches to break, which exacerbated the extent of the power outages.
When major storms occur, electric cooperatives have always depended upon other co-ops to help restore power after widespread outages. This mutual aid mindset is no different when our neighboring states need assistance. Kansas electric cooperative line crews headed to Central Electric Cooperative, Cimarron Electric Cooperative, CKenergy Electric Cooperative, Northfork Electric Cooperative and Rural Electric Cooperative — all Oklahoma cooperatives that requested mutual aid assistance. Organized by Kansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc. (KEC), crews from 13 co-ops and one subsidiary responded to the thousands of power outages caused by the storm, working seven-day, extended-hour shifts until power was restored. As the restoration extended beyond several days, many cooperatives rotated lineworkers to ensure safety for all involved.
The combined response involved 93 line workers from: 4Rivers Electric Cooperative, Lebo; Ark Valley Electric Cooperative, South Hutchinson; Butler Electric Cooperative, El Dorado; DSO Electric Cooperative, Solomon; Flint Hills Rural Electric Cooperative, Council Grove; Heartland Rural Electric Cooperative, Girard; Lane-Scott Electric Cooperative, Dighton; Ninnescah Rural Electric Cooperative, Pratt; Pioneer Electric Cooperative, Ulysses; Rolling Hills Electric Cooperative, Beloit; Southern Pioneer Electric Company, Liberal; Twin Valley Electric Cooperative, Altamont; Victory Electric Cooperative, Dodge City; and Western Cooperative Electric, WaKeeney.
“Linemen feel the need to help other cooperatives around the state and nation because they know it may be them who needs the help the next time,” Stacey Marston, KEC instructor of loss control, safety and compliance and mutual aid coordinator for this storm, said. “Long lasting friendships are made while the crews are working extended hours to get power restored to co-op consumer-members and many of the linemen stay in touch even after the storms have passed and the restoration is complete.”
Oklahoma reported more than 4,000 downed poles, however the largest problems across the state were downed power lines due to ice-covered tree limbs and leaves. By Thursday, Oct. 29, temperatures hit above freezing, and ice began melting, which provided the challenge of muddy roads for mutual aid crews. Equipped with 23 bucket trucks, 14 digger trucks, pole trailers, foreman pickup trucks and other equipment, the Kansas crews worked alongside crews deployed from Arkansas, Missouri and other parts of Oklahoma.
By noon on Monday, Nov. 2, just under 9,500 outages remained and by the end of that day, most of the impacted co-ops reported power restoration to polling stations just ahead of the 2020 election.
Two weeks after the historic early season ice storm, roughly 175 residential outages remained with power expected to be restored by Nov. 10. Additional commercial, industrials and some farm outages would take longer to be reconnected as several co-ops experienced greater damage to infrastructure.
The Oklahoma co-ops impacted estimate the historic storm caused more than $26 million in damage.