UPDATE: Progress Made In Power Restoration In The Panhandle

HOOKER, Okla. (July 4, 2014, 10 a.m. update) – As of 9 a.m. on July 4, about 140 TCEC meters remain off, most of them nonresidential. About 20 residences remain without power and the cooperative plans to restore power to those members as soon as possible.

"As of yesterday evening, roughly 500 poles have been identified as damaged due to Monday’s storm," Zac Perkins, TCEC assistant general manager, said. "We’ve continued to discover damage to the system since our initial daylight assessment on Tuesday. Although we’ve been able to restore power to most members, we’ll be repairing damage for weeks to come. Crews from other cooperatives are still assisting TCEC today and work will likely continue over the weekend."

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As of 8 a.m., TCEC has restored power to 88 percent of the approximately 9,000 meters originally affected by the June 30 storm. Approximately 1,100 meters still remain off, with the majority in Texas and Cimarron Counties. Additional crews from Greenbelt Electric Cooperative, Central Rural Electric Cooperative and Northwestern Electric Cooperative as well as a contract crew from North Plains Electric Cooperative are joining power restoration efforts today. Fifteen crews are now in the field.

“We’ve made major progress in our restoration efforts since Monday night,” Zac Perkins, TCEC assistant general manager, said. “Work will continue through Friday evening which is when we hope to have power restored to the majority of affected members if weather permits.”

Perkins explained initial repairs are focused on restoring power to the greatest number of members possible. By the evening of July 2, transmission repairs were completed and all distribution substations were online. This restored a large number of outages quickly. Repairs to distribution lines feeding towns will continue today. After feeders have been restored, repairs will turn to tap lines which serve several meters. Following that, crews will work on service lines for individual homes.

“People may question why they are without power when their neighbor has it,” Perkins said. “Depending on how power is fed to them and where the system is damaged, some individuals may have an isolated outage for an extended time. This is especially true in rural areas. Once an outage is reported, we are aware of it and it is made part of our restoration plan. We are working as quickly as possible to restore power to all affected members.”