"We are still unable to give any estimates of how long it might take," Jonna Hensley of Northwestern Electric Company said in an interview late Tuesday morning. "There might be some we get on sooner than others, but it is just impossible to tell."
Hensley said more than 200 additional contractors were in the field beginning Sunday and that number is likely to increase at the company that has long been the supplier of power to residents most residents living in Northwest Oklahoma.
But the job is enormous with more than 2,000 power lines that have literally snapped at the ground level from the stress that a full inch of ice placed on them.
"And that number is expected to rise because we are still finding damage as our workers work their way along," she said.
According to Woodward County Emergency Manager Matt Lehenbauer, the region received more than three inches of rain over the two days of the ice storm. In Woodward, about seven-tenths of an inch formed on power lines and trees, which caused the disaster that might take weeks from which to recover.
While it is hard to estimate and the Northwestern Electric Company won't issue a worst case scenario, it has been stated by some company workers that some people might be out of power up to three weeks.
Hensley said only that they are restoring power to people daily.
"Some will get their power on earlier than others, but at this point, they are still finding damage and it is too difficult to estimate a time frame," she said.
According to OG&E spokesman Tim Thompson about 95 percent of customers in the Woodward area have had their power restored.
"We had about in the range of 200 poles down. Our system held up pretty well. Tree limbs of course was causing a number of outages. Some places the lines went down and completely locked out the circuit."
"Initially by the end of Friday we had 500 employees out here. When Enid shut down we had 750 people in town," he said. "By the end of today we should have all of our customers back on."
But things are much more complex for Northwestern Electric cooperative, which owns the rural systems that feed the Panhandle.
In Harper County, as one drives west on U.S. Highway 64, power poles lay, some sheared off at ground level, some in the middle and some with the tops sheared off. for miles.
Monday and Tuesday workers with huge pole trucks began replacing broken poles with new ones and then outfitting them with all new fixtures.
"To put it in a way that might help people understand, we are basically rebuilding much of our entire system from scratch," Hensley said.
According to Harper County Emergency Manager Conyetta Lehenbauer, it is best for Harper County residents in the rural areas to plan in a more long-term way.
Lehenbauer said Northwestern Electric workers, Monday, managed to bring the power back up for Buffalo residents and also restored power to the water supply system from Doby Springs to that small community
In Laverne, most residents had power restored by just before midnight Sunday.
According to its website, Northwestern Electric Cooperative had the following statistics regarding outages in the Panhandle and Woodward;
Ellis County - 1,714 customers without power
Harper County - 1,891 customers without power
Dewey County - 783 customers without power
Major County - 182 customers without power
Woods County - 63 customers without power
Woodward - 3,764 customers without power
Beaver County - 3.085 customers without power
Matt Lehenbauer said FEMA has not yet been involved in this disaster. He and managers from Ellis, Harper and Dewey Counties are working toward completion of the paperwork to apply for federal relief.
In his address to Woodward County commissioners on Tuesday morning, Lehenbauer said it was important to attempt to get the federal relief before asking for state relief because state relief can only be requested once per year.
"So if we get hit by a tornado in May, we will be out of luck because we will have already requested assistance," he said.
Also, state assistance is limited to $100,000 and already, the cost for the ice storm is half that and the recovery has not even really begun, he said.
In his report, Lehenbauer added a request for Fort Supply residents to conserve water because of the failure of one of the generators at water wells there.
"Mayor Mike Lowden of Fort Supply has issued a mandatory water restriction until we get our issues resolved. We are transporting six pallets of water there and should be at the fire department available for resident there," Lehenbauer said. "All the other water systems in Woodward County are up."
He added a warning to storm victims to watch out for several unscrupulous opportunists who are traveling around the region attempting to make money off of disaster victims by offering to clear yards of limb debris.
"They are telling storm victims that they are FEMA approved and that the property owners will be reimbursed and that is not true," Lehenbauer said.
According to Odes Tucker of Tucker Tree Service out of Noble, storm victims can count on spending anywhere from $50 to $1,000, depending on what they must have done. Tucker's Tree Service has been an Oklahoma business for more than 30 years, he said.
For instance, if all you need to have done is to have some limbs removed from the yard and have it cleaned up, that is a $200 job, Tucker said. "And that better be a good job, you know, making it look real nice," he said.
But to have a whole crew come in and use chainsaws to cut existing limbs and pile up limbs where they can be hauled off, you can expect to pay about $125 per hour.
"Now that is me having my whole crew there and doing everything, cutting the trees back and hauling it off," Tucker said. "But then I came upon an older gentleman who was disabled and he was working on a tree and I did it for him for $50 because it was just one tree and took me about 30 minutes."
According to Lehenbauer, some storm victims have told him they are getting estimates all the way up to $600 just to clear at driveway. He agreed with Tucker that a more fair, reasonable price, depending on the size of the yard, is around $200 if the job requires no tree pruning.
"You should negotiate the price as low as you can because there are other people around here who will do it," Lehenbauer said. "Also, do not pay more than 10 percent up front and when you pay, pay with an instrument that can be recorded like a check or a credit card."
Lehenbauer said it is best to get estimates and compare prices before making any deals with anyone. And be wary of businesses that cannot be found online through a business review site or their own website.
———
©2017 The Woodward News (Woodward, Okla.)
Visit The Woodward News (Woodward, Okla.) at woodwardnews.net
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency
