The goal is Saturday evening for all of the Public Service Company customers who lost power in last weekend’s severe weather to have service restored.
PSO said it had restored electricity to more than 117,000 customers as of Wednesday evening but another 87,633 were still without power. At one point, 204,000 PSO customers were without electricity following the Saturday night storms. So more than half of all customers affected by the storms have had power restored.
The power company received the assistance of more than 2,700 utility workers who traveled to the PSO service area to assist with the restoration efforts.
PSO is still advising its customers to stay away from downed power lines because they could be energized and dangerous. It also wants customers to not approach crews working to restore power because their focus should be to work safely without interruption.
Some scams might be also at play because PSO said its employees are not calling customers asking for money to restore power.
“If you receive this type of call, hang up,” urged PSO.
The Oklahoma Association of Electric Cooperatives reported progress in its power restoration efforts. At mid-day Wednesday, it reported 733 customers remained without power, down from the more than 1,200 reported late Tuesday.
Most of the rural consumers who lost power during the storm are in Creek County where 366 customers of Indian Electric Cooperative waited to have their electricity restored. However, the cooperative reported a total of nearly 500 of its customers remain without power. They are in Noble, Osage, Pawnee, Payne and Tulsa Counties.
Central Rural Electric Cooperative had more than 100 customers still without power and most were in Payne County.
Northeast Oklahoma Electric Cooperative listed 46 member-consumers without power as of mid-day Wednesday with the majority in Mayes County.
Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company crews, with the help of workers from utilities in 23 other states managed to have power restored to 97% of the customers who lost it during the storms.
OG&E expected to have power fully restored for 98% of the customers who experienced an outage in the storms by late Wednesday night. However, it also had to deal with additional thunderstorms and 55 mph winds Wednesday morning in northern Oklahoma.
The company said it anticipates that the remaining customers will have power restored by late Thursday night.
