Severe Weather, Tornadoes Strike Western Oklahoma

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February 27, 2023

By News Director Jared Atha

A large system of severe thunderstorms produced multiple tornadoes Sunday night, with one of them striking the Roger Mills County community of Cheyenne.

Officials are still assessing the damage but have reported that multiple structures including homes were hit, and some destroyed.

The tornado, that has not received a rating as of press time, blew through the northwest portion of the Cheyenne community near the airport before pushing off to the northwest near Strong City.

Beckham County Sheriff Derek Manning said his deputies and himself assisted the Roger Mills County Sheriff’s Department along with other authorities Sunday night during the aftermath of the storm.

Manning said unfortunately it was discovered that there was one fatality.

Manning said there were no reports of major damage in Beckham County.

There was a report of a semi truck being blown off Interstate 40 in Custer County near Weatherford. No injuries were reported in that crash.

Power companies have reported that due to downed power lines multiple customers are still without power.

At noon Monday, Public Service Company of Oklahoma said damage assessments include 92 downed poles in the PSO distribution system, mostly in southwest Oklahoma. Damage was also reported for transmission towers, wires, and other equipment. Officials said at around 10 p.m. Sunday, 11,229 customers were without power throughout the PSO service area, marking the high point for outages. As of 11 a.m., the vast majority of customers were restored with the number of outages reduced to less than 1,000 customers. The remaining outages are concentrated in southwestern Oklahoma, where 900 customers were without power.

At 2 p.m. Monday, Northfork Electric Cooperative was reporting a total of 199 members without power in Roger Mills County, and 190 members in Kiowa County without power.

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