Volume 8 , Issue 1

Oklahoma Burning...

"There have been no problems in our Perry area yet (north-central Oklahoma). BUT... there have been 20 wildfires in the state today (Sunday, New Years day) because of the very strong winds and the mid-70's temperatures combined with the extremely dry conditions. At 7:30 P.M. there were still 12 active fires and several homes have burned to the ground in Prague, Duncan, Oklahoma City, etc.. Before the ones today, there had been 150 to 200 homes lost in our state since Nov. 1st. and fire crews from Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida have rushed to our aid. 14 states have promised to help. There's also concern for the loss of hay and other crops to feed the livestock in the coming months. They're predicting that we'll have a bit of a reprieve from the high winds and high temperatures tomorrow, but there will be a return on Tuesday (a 76 degree temp. is predicted along with stronger winds again). We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

In the meantime... here's what Glenda had to tell me a few hours ago: 'It has been quite a day, the wind was been so strong, first it either blew some lines together or had a transformer blow. Our electricity went off and we heard a loud bang. I just went ahead and shut off the computers and TV. Then Cliv went outside and came in to tell me I'd lost three panels of siding off the north side of the house. Arkla had their service people out with the fire, checking to make sure it was ok to let people back into the area. We had a real bad fire going on the west side of Duncan, I think it started as a grass fire but it damaged a number of homes. They had asked people to move out of the area, but it was to the west of us. They also had a bad fire going between Duncan and Lawton, and had to close highway 7 for a while as well as 81. Then we heard that Nacona was also having a bad fire and 81 had been closed there too. We saw that OKC had their problem fires too.'" -- Roy In Perry, OK   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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