OG&E Open Letter to Customers

November 16, 2020

OG&E Customers:

The recent October ice storm was historic for our state, leaving more than 600,000 without power. The early season storm destroyed countless trees, many of which fell across power lines throughout the state, disrupting the lives of not only our customers but hundreds of thousands of others touched by the storm. We know that being without power causes significant inconvenience.

On behalf of our employees and those who came from far and wide to assist in restoration, I want to thank you for your patience. We marshaled more than 4,000 line crew members — the largest in our company’s history — who worked around the clock to restore power.

Even under daunting conditions and facing extensive damage, we witnessed the Oklahoma Standard in action. Thousands came together from across the nation with a singular goal of restoring power safely.  Neighbors helped neighbors and community organizations, working through United Way of Central Oklahoma, mobilized resources to help families and individuals in need — truly a model for the country.

Our OG&E family is grateful to our fellow utility companies that came from 18 states and Canada to help us tackle the massive devastation and worked alongside us to restore power throughout our entire service area.

We are also grateful to those in our communities who showed their support for our efforts. As crew members went house to house restoring power, many expressed their appreciation and shared their graciousness and understanding. And I want to extend my thanks to all of those who rallied around the workers, making them feel so appreciated.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been as proud of our OG&E family. Like our customers, many of our employees were without power. They spent countless hours working in the most challenging conditions imaginable, with unbelievable focus and dedication, to restore customers’ power. I thank them.

Oklahomans are accustomed to impacts of severe weather events. It has been nearly 13 years since a storm of this magnitude struck our state, but we can never rest. When storms do occur, your resiliency and kindness help us make it through events like this together.

We are committed to ongoing improvement and will continue to explore ways to further improve our restoration efforts. And, rest assured, we will continue to work hard to fulfill our responsibilities to deliver affordable and reliable energy to you.