Strong winds knocked out power for many homes across Oklahoma on Sunday, including some in Lincoln County.
The entire state was under a red flag fire warning, with Lincoln County especally on alert as March 14 marked the one year since fires burned through around 10,000 acres in the area. Wind gusts of up to 50 to 60 miles per hour hit the state over the weekend, according to OG&E. Lincoln County saw about two major outages on Sunday. One swath was south of Chandler and at one point affected about 152 customers. Another stretched from the Oklahoma City area into Wellston, and as of around 3:45 p.m. on Sunday, affected around 1,425 customers.
At peak outages on Sunday, there were an estimated 25,000 outages statewide, according to state officials.
As of about 2 p.m. on Monday, 1,051 OG&E customers were without power in the state, according to company’s outage tracker.
Of all the customers impacted, OG&E said that 97 percent had their power restored within 12 hours. Crews were out through Monday continuing work on downed lines. The company said high winds can make working on the grid difficult and unsafe, as they often need to adjust. Workers are unable to bring out bucket trucks or other aerial equipment.
OG&E said that after storms, crews will bring tree and brush debris to the curb, however customers are responsible for removing the debris.
Winds are expected to die down further as the week continues, while temperatures are expected to continue rising, according to Mesonet.