'This Is Unbelievable': Storm Demolishes Power Grid Along North Pennsylvania Avenue

A section of North Pennsylvania Avenue in Oklahoma City remained closed Tuesday evening after strong winds from an overnight storm snapped numerous utility poles, cutting power to many businesses.

North Pennsylvania Avenue, between 122nd Street and West Memorial Road, had been shut down since early Tuesday morning to allow crews to remove the downed poles and power lines while restoring electricity to the area. As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, the road remained closed.

OG&E said during the peak of the outage, 30,398 customers were without power. As of 5:40 p.m. Tuesday, about 1,800 customers were still in the dark. 

"This is horrible damage," said Centario Norris, who works at a nearby hotel. "This is bad because this is one of my favorite places to come out this way."

Norris drove to the affected section of North Pennsylvania Avenue because he was planning to grab lunch at one of the restaurants. But when he arrived, he realized they were closed.

"Wow, I'm going to be hungry until 3 o'clock. But it is crazy with the damage and I'm just glad nobody's hurt right now," said Norris.

Norris said his home did not suffer damage from the storm. But it did keep him up for the rest of the night.

"I noticed my trash can was halfway down the street so I had to run and grab it," said Norris. "It was some serious wind. My dogs would not even go outside."

Also surprised by the extent of damage along North Pennsylvania Avenue was Ozell Powell, who works at one of the restaurants along the road.

"Man, this is unbelievable," said Powell. "You told me strong winds. I was thinking it was a tornado!"

OG&E said 1,000 crew members were working Tuesday to repair the power grid. Norris applauded their efforts.

"They're like our superheroes right now because there are a lot of people that do not have power and we do have some senior citizens that's actually at their assisted living place that they don't have power there," said Norris. "So they're actually coming in (to our hotel). So we giving them, making sure they got rooms and stuff."