Keating to tour ice-ravaged McAlester; death toll rises to 12

Friday, December 29th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) _ Even with promises of state and federal aid, emergency officials urged thousands of southeast Oklahomans left without power and facing the next icy blast to turn to each other Friday.

Crews worked round the clock to repair damaged lines, but electric company officials warned that some southeast Oklahoma residents might be without power through next week.

``We do know there are people who are still in the cold and still in the dark,'' said Michelann Ooten, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Civil Emergency Management. ``We're hoping that Oklahomans once again are proving the best neighbors. If you know someone who doesn't have power don't assume they know where the shelter is.''

She urged southeast Oklahoma residents to check on neighbors and offer them rides to shelters if needed.

Beatrice Sam and her 91-year-old husband, John, toughed it out in their cold McAlester home for four days before they finally got a ride to a local Red Cross shelter.

John Sam got out of the hospital a week ago after suffering a heart attack. The Sams managed to stay warm by piling on four blankets, a thick bedspread and quilt.

Mrs. Sam said that when they got up to go to the bathroom, they'd crawl back in bed and shiver until they got warm.

``I probably could have toughed it out, but he can't,'' Mrs. Sam said. ``Some people are still out there toughing it out.''

She busied herself Friday by helping out other elderly residents taking refuge in a shelter that houses school offices, museums and the Red Cross chapter for southeastern Oklahoma.

While some residents evacuated to shelters, others stayed home and tried to cope with the aftermath of a winter storm that felled trees from one horizon to the other and coated the landscape in frigid crystal.

Gov. Frank Keating planned to see for himself Friday the region ravaged by a winter storm that caused at least 12 deaths and shut off electricity and water to thousands.

Keating, his wife, Cathy, and other state officials are scheduled to tour McAlester by helicopter. Residents in the city of more than 16,000 have been without electricity and water intermittently since Tuesday.

An estimated 149,000 Oklahoma homes and businesses remained without electric power Thursday following freezing rain, sleet and snow that began falling on Christmas Day. Southwestern Bell Telephone also reported 1,400 subscribers without service.

Just as workers were trying to restore power for about 6,000 McAlester residents, a transmission line belonging to Public Service Co. of Oklahoma failed early Thursday afternoon and cut off all power to the city. Some service was later restored, officials said.

PSO officials said Friday that nearly 25,000 people in its service area still had no electricity.

PSO spokesman Ed Bettinger said 3,500 people in McAlester had no power and another 5,600 others were without power in the immediate area.

PSO officials also reported that 7,700 customers were without power in the Hugo-Idabel area, 5,300 in the Wilberton-Stigler-Broken Bow area and 2,700 in Okmulgee.

Bettinger said PSO estimated the ice storm left 400 broken utility poles. The utility has nearly 600 people working to repair the damage.

Mayor Dale Covington declared a dusk-til-dawn curfew after the power on the transmission line went out.

Mike Taylor, 39, said he and his wife, Lisa, 39, and his stepson hitchhiked into McAlester on Tuesday after the power in their house went out.

``We cook and everything on electric and we live in the country, so it's even worse out there,'' Taylor said. His wife suffers from asthma and sometimes relies on a machine to help her breath, said Taylor, who walks with the help of a cane.

Billie Cathey, executive director of the Red Cross chapter in southeastern Oklahoma, said many residents, including the elderly, leave home reluctantly.

``People don't leave their homes easily. They will be cold and in the dark before they do anything else,'' she said.

AEP-PSO spokesman Stan Whiteford said that some customers are expected to be without power for 10 days.

``We expect to make significant progress in restoring the majority of customers much sooner than that,'' he said.

A C-130 military cargo plane hauled water from Oklahoma City to McAlester and the Salvation Army also trucked water from Oklahoma City's Food Bank to emergency offices in McAlester.

The Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester has been locked down due to the power outage and officials were asking for water on Thursday, said prison spokesman Jerry Massie.

``The inmates are sitting in the dark,'' said Linda Christensen, whose son is an inmate.

``They are now using trash bags to go to the bathroom in,'' she said. ``They are handing out water once a day _ all he had to get his water in was his waste basket.

``It's like being locked in a big outhouse,'' Christensen said.

The deaths of 11 people, including three children, are being blamed on the storm. Another person died this week because of the outages, said McAlester City Manager Randy Green.

President Clinton declared an emergency in the state on Thursday and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts. Keating earlier in the week declared the state's 77 counties a disaster area.

Clinton's declaration authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts, particularly in 27 counties in central, southern and eastern Oklahoma.