Claremore Residents Frustrated After Utility Bills Increase After Tornado

A Claremore woman is frustrated after she says her electric bill went up by $100 even though she wasn’t living in her house for more than a week after the tornado in May.

She’s one of several people complaining about higher electric bills, but the City of Claremore says it’s happening because people use more electricity in the summer.

Deanna Sarratt-Barnes says getting back to normal after the tornado damaged her property has been expensive.

On top of that, she has a higher utility bill even though she used less utilities.

The Claremore tornado in May left Sarratt-Barnes out of power for several days.

She lived at a hotel for nine days and came back to an electric bill that was higher than the month before.

"Having to deal with all the other stuff and then you get your electric bill and it's even higher,” said Sarratt-Barnes. “You kind of feel like you're getting beat down. The tornado gets you, then the bills get you."

Sarratt-Barnes believes her bill should have been lower since she wasn’t using any power while it was out.

"I mean, it should have been, if anything, it should have been at least 50 bucks cheaper, or 100 dollars cheaper than the month before,” said Sarratt-Barnes. “I just want to understand what's going on."

The City of Claremore says people weren’t charged for the time their power was out, and sent us a statement that says in full:

“City of Claremore utility customers who experience outages are not charged during the duration of their outage. As a result of extremely hot temperatures, customers often experience a surge in the use of home cooling systems, leading to increased electric usage. To help conserve energy and reduce cost this summer, the City of Claremore provides an online platform with helpful tips and conservation methods. For more information and resources, visit www.claremore.com/conservation. Customers who have concerns or questions about their bill should contact the utility billing office at (918) 341-0456.”

Sarratt-Barnes doesn’t think that’s the case.

"For a whole month, when it was like 100 degree temperatures and we had to use the air conditioner more, it wasn't much more than what I got charged for the month when we had no electric for nine days,” said Sarratt-Barnes.

She wants the city to look into what’s been happening with the bills and see what can be done.

"I hope the city just kind of looks through it and maybe there's a glitch in the computer system that's causing it,” said Sarratt-Barnes. “I just hope they look into it and find out why stuff like this happens."