Storm kills power in town

As the sun rises on Friday, daylight will reveal just how much storm damage Luther suffered in Thursday night’s severe thunderstorm. Official word on windspeed is unavailable, but the wind was strong enough to snap poles and large trees and down power lines.

Luther is in the dark with no electricity. It was an eery scene overnight with the darkness only being interrupted by the glow of emergency lights on police and fire vehicles, and the occasional solar light. In the darkness, you could see some of the damage with massive trees down north of the school’s agriculture building between Hogback (Main) and Ash (Luther). A massive tree blocked Hogback close to the Community Center leaving power lines hanging. There was another report of a pole down at 192nd and Triple X.

Luther volunteer firefighters were out immediately after the storm. LFD also provided mutual aid to the Oklahoma City fire department with tree clearing, while OG&E staged line crews across from the Feed Store as they filtered out for repairs. The police department provided barricades in an area from about Main Street downtown as it turns into Hogback Road toward the high school football field because of the downed trees and power lines. Looks for those barricades to remain Friday morning.

Through the darkness Thursday evening, you could catch glimpses of uprooted trees, shingles and other things carried by the strong winds. There was even a report the batting cages were blown onto Hwy 66, blocking the road for a while.

LPD reports no injuries.

On the bright side, the town has water, thanks to the recent Town purchase of new generators to keep the water tower and the sewer station operational in power outages. On the not so bright side, looks like many businesses will not be able to serve the public Friday morning without electricity. Just two weeks ago, another storm knocked out power businesses on a busy Saturday.

Many thanks to LFD, LPD and OG&E for their swift work.

Fields Youngblood Water Well Drilling