Crews work to restore power

PSO crews were expected to work through the night to restore power to more than 17,500 Lawton-area residents who lost power from Thursday’s storm.

Tim Hushbeck, PSO spokesman, said late Thursday that crews were preparing to power up six feeder lines, and if that process was successful and the second round of storms didn’t cause additional problems, it would restore power to an estimate 10,000 customers. But that would leave more than 7,500 customers still without, and Hushbeck predicted some customers would remain without power through the night.

The number of customer outages climbed steadily through the afternoon and early evening, and at its height most of east Lawton was without power, as were significant portions of Lawton west of Sheridan Road. While there were large areas where 1,000 customers or more were without power, there also were multiple locations — especially in west Lawton — where 5 to 100 customers were without power.

Hushbeck said that one of the major problem areas was along West Lee Boulevard, where strong winds ripped down power poles and littered the street with tree limbs.

“We’ve got crews to clear that,” Hushbeck said, of work that was a priority because Lee Boulevard is an arterial, and clearing that had to be done before crews could begin work on poles and lines.

Hushbeck said wind caused the vast majority of Lawton’s problems.

And wind knocking down power lines wasn’t limited to Lawton. Hushbeck said he also saw numerous power poles down in the Walters area, leaving many of those residents without power. That area is served by Cotton Electric.