Electric crews continue to restore power with promise of warm weather

The promise of warmer weather remained a distant hope to crews toiling in subfreezing temperatures to return power to thousands of Oklahomans.

And forecasters' predictions of temperatures in the 30s and 40s later in the week were little consolation to the estimated 42,800 Oklahomans who remained without electricity more than a week after the state's power infrastructure was crippled by a Christmas Day snowstorm.

Meanwhile, officials could only guess about when power might be totally restored across southeastern Oklahoma.

"I don't really know specifics on when it will all be back to normal," said Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Civil Emergency Management.

"It's going to take a while."

Ooten said deep snow -- the result of a weekend storm -- continued to slow efforts to restore power, but that dry skies Monday were a big boost to the effort.

Crews were able to restore power to about 27,000 people Sunday and Monday.

A total of 11,000 Oklahoma Gas & Electric customers were still without power early Tuesday, authorities said. Another 6,160 customers of American Electric Power were without power, and rural electric cooperatives were working to restore electrical service to more than 25,000 customers.

Ooten said thick forests were part of the problem in restoring power. She said the small rural cooperatives, from which many Oklahomans get their power, also have neither the staff nor infrastructure to effectively deal with widespread outages.

Ooten said 22 emergency shelters and six feeding centers were open across the state, down from 50 on Saturday. Shelters have closed as power in their area is turned back on.

In McAlester, 800 homes and businesses remained without power Monday night, City Manager Randy Green said. Crews were expected to have the power back on to McAlester residents by Thursday, he said.

About 40 percent of Murray County did not have power and 55 percent of LeFlore County remained without it early Tuesday. Most other affected counties were reporting power to between 70 and 100 percent of their residents.

But electricity problems weren't the only difficulties bringing pause to New Year's Eve celebrations in Oklahoma.

Officially, the deaths of 22 people have been attributed to either the Christmas Day winter storm or Sunday's snowstorm, which has resulted in five traffic deaths.

Meanwhile, 39 counties in Oklahoma have been designated eligible for federal disaster aid.

Ooten said the disaster was shaping up to make the Christmas Day storm one of the worst in the state's recent memory. She said she hoped officials could begin to assess the damage from the storm in about a week.

"I think it would be safe to say that in the recent memories of people who I've been around here, this stands out as one of the worst," Ooten said. "Personally I've lived in Oklahoma most of my life and I don't ever remember anything like this."