1000 People Still Without Power In Claremore

The City of Claremore says about 1,000 people are still without power following the May 25th tornado. 

City manager John Feary says considering what happened, the town is in pretty good shape getting everything restored. 

He says crews have been working around the clock, and he’s confident everyone will have power in the next 48 hours. 

People in town have been trying to pass the time while waiting for power. 

“Cooking on the grill, if you have something to cook, heating coffee on the grill, making scrambled eggs on the grill, a bunch of silly stuff like that,” said Billy Guthrie. 

Billy Guthrie lost power when the storm came through town; it came back on for a bit the day after, but then he says it went dark and has been out since. 

“Is it like there’s just a switch on a pole down here, and we’ve been sitting here this whole time, and all they need to do is come flick it back on,” he said. 

Feary says the city was first told they would be out of power for 14 to 28 days.

Although 1,000 people still don’t have power, that’s better than the city expected. 

Feary says they were able to get the main distribution system up on Friday, but there’s still work to be done. 

“That’s just secondary service lines, the little stuff, that’s in backyards alleys, and there’s still one-off things on the distribution side, but we had all of our circuits back up in record time,” he said. 

If the homeowner needs to take action, the city says information will be left on their door.

“It says, hey, you need to call an electrician, make sure they’re insured, licensed, all of that good stuff, get that fixed on your side, and then call us back,” Feary said. 

In addition to Claremore city crews, 130 linemen from cities across the state are here helping, and Feary calls them the true heroes of this restoration effort.