“We were dispatched on outages, and the storm looked really bad,” said Jeff Denton, Central Rural Electric Cooperative’s safety director. “We saw troopers and emergency vehicles flying by, I looked at Larry and asked, ‘I wonder if they know something we don’t.’”

It was only when lightning struck that apprentice lineman, Jeff Denton, and second-year lineman, Larry Gordon, saw the tornado and realized it had entered Central’s service area.

 

Trailing the Tornado

The two young linemen were on call the day that tornadoes swept across Oklahoma 25 years ago on May 3, 1999. 

They knew that a tornado was wreaking havoc across Oklahoma, but hadn’t realized the outages they were responding to were caused by one of the 74 tornadoes that touched down across Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas in less than 21 hours.

“We drove into a wall of water and had to stop the truck,” Denton said. “After several minutes, it cleared enough that we could drive. Once we hit Interstate 35, the ground was just bare. Trees, poles, the grass, everything was gone.”

An F-4 tornado had touched down south of Crescent and made its way 19 miles northeast through Mulhall, ending north of Perry. 

“It was the most ominous tornado,” said Gordon, now Central’s smart grid technician. “We were 10 miles from the tornado and it took up the whole windshield.”

The tornado touched down during the night and exceeded one mile in width at times.

“When we saw the tornado, we were behind it,” Gordon said. “It was like the sky came to the ground.”

Inside Central’s dispatch office, a team watched KWTV’s Gary England report on the tornado as it ripped through the service area. They called the linemen into the office until they could assess what to do next.

“It was a good thing we weren’t 10 minutes earlier,” Denton said. “Everything in its path was gone. Parts of foundation were all that was left of houses.”

 

Assessing the Damage

“We didn’t know how much damage we had at first, but we got a lot of calls,” said John Myers, Central’s right of way (ROW) superintendent. “At the time, when someone called, we would take notes on yellow pads. We had stacks of yellow notes and with each call, it would grow.” 

Nearly 3,000 members throughout Central’s seven-county service area had lost power. 

David Freeman, ROW foreman at the time was out that initial day and said, “We went out to see the devastation from the path, but the tornado had taken everything and moved it, it was all gone.” 

It didn’t take long for crews to realize the majority of the damage in Central’s service area happened across Crescent, Mulhall, Perry and Stroud.

“Mulhall went from a cute little town with trees to just barren,” said Bryan Payne, then a ROW line clearance tree trimmer.

Myers recalled how the tornado followed the contour of the ground and stripped some homes in its path to nothing but concrete slabs.

“I saw a big slab of metal in a bar ditch,” Myers said. “It took me a few minutes to understand what it was, but that ball of metal was a Chevy pickup truck that could fit in the back of my truck.”

Dewayne Drury, Central’s current director of operations had worked in the ROW department for 28 days when the tornadoes hit the service area. 

“I had never been around that amount of damage before,” Drury said. “I remember seeing the damage around Stroud. It had taken out the whole Tanger Outlet Mall.”

 

Restoring Power

“We just knew we had to get out there and get everyone’s life back to normal,” Payne said. “We just fell right into place.”

It took Central several days to account for the 42 miles of downed power lines throughout the service area. 

“It was emotional,” Denton said. “You were working where people had lived their whole lives, and they were out there trying to find what they had left.”

A new apprentice lineman at the time, Bill Edwards recalled state troopers stopping traffic as he and Gordon hoisted an electrical line over I-35.

“Me being fresh on the job, I had never experienced the all day, every day until then,” Edwards said. “That was my first big experience of having lines down for miles.”

Central crews worked up to 16 hours a day to restore power to members.

“We would work until evening, take a rest, and be back to load up and go back out again at 6 a.m.,” Myers said. “It was all hands on deck to get the lights back on.”

Service to the Stroud area was mostly restored within 36 hours, while some members near Perry, Mulhall and Crescent were without power for weeks.

“It tested your milk,” Gordon said. “It’s one of those that you’ll never have trouble remembering.”

 

The Strength of Membership

“What stuck out the most were the long, hot days and the amount of debris and trash,” Edwards said. “That and the members who were willing to help by bringing water and food.” 

More than 21% of Central’s membership lost power during the storms and tornado outbreak.

“We would be out working and members would make coffee off a grill to give us some and thank us,” Myers said.

Denton remembers sitting down at the end of a long day when the line superintendent stepped into the lineman lounge and announced that the last mile of line was ready to be restored.

“He walked in and asked if we wanted to wait until the morning or if we wanted to get it done that night,” Denton said. “Everyone jumped up ready to go. I’ll never forget that.” 

Eight linemen drove to Crescent to restore the final members. 

Denton said “I remember the call on the radio ‘Everybody’s in the clear, make it hot.’ That’s when the last member’s lights turned on. It felt exhilarating.”

A defining day for Oklahomans across the state, May 3 marks the 25th anniversary of one of the worst tornado outbreaks Oklahoma has ever seen.

For Central, it’s the strength of the storm and the people that will never be forgotten.