A rare fall ice storm dubbed Icetober hit Central Rural Electric Cooperative’s service area on October 26. Fall ice storms are rare and more damaging, as many trees still have their leaves. This provides more surface area for freezing rain to stick. The result was catastrophic for Central resulting in nearly 200 damaged poles scattered across our service area. Crews worked around the clock for nine straight days to restore power. More than 14,000 meters were off at some point during the storm, and many members were without power for several days.  

“The ice storm, while early in the year, did not catch us off guard,” said Hunter Robinson, Central CEO. “Just the week before we held a table top drill for our Outage Response Plan and played out what needed to take place should a major outage event take place. When the ice storm hit, we were prepared to hit the ground running, and our team did just that.” 

Early in the storm, Central brought in mutual aid crews from neighboring Oklahoma cooperatives and three other states to help. Central also had contract crews in addition to the co-op’s own line crews. More than 100 individuals were working in the field along with support from nearly 60 employees in the office dispatching crews, answering members’ phone calls and making sure crews had everything they needed to work efficiently. 

All outages were restored by 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3.