President Bush’s declaration will allow federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts.

President Bush declared a state of emergency for all of Oklahoma on Tuesday as about 210,000 homes and businesses in the Tulsa metro area remained without power.

The entire state sustained a record power outage of about 600,000 at its peak.

Federal aid will supplement state and local response efforts to the ice storm that hit earlier this week.

Mayor Kathy Taylor said the declaration “will enable the city to better serve our citizens as we try to meet the most critical needs during this emergency.”

The storm’s cost to the city and county through overtime and tangible resources won’t be fully known for several days, said Mike McCool, Tulsa Area Emergency Management Agency director.

“But we’re keeping track of all of our expenses hoping for some compensation from the state and federal governments,” he said.

A federal disaster declaration is a possibility in the near future, McCool said. That would provide for citizen reimbursement for uninsured items that have received damage.

The death toll from the storm has reached at least 15, including two in Tulsa on Monday.

American Red Cross spokeswoman Nellie Kelly said more than 1,100 people stayed at the 18 shelters that have been established in the region.

“That’s a good thing,” she said. “It means people aren’t trying to tough it out at home.

Our goal is to provide warm and safe places to stay and food and drinks in times like this.”

Two of Tulsa’s shelters, at First Baptist Church in downtown and Asbury United Methodist Church, reached capacity for Tuesday night.

A third Tulsa shelter was set up in the afternoon at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at 8730 E. Skelly Drive to handle the overflow.

As of 8:45 p.m., Tuesday, American Electric Power-Public Service Company of Oklahoma was reporting about 210,000 outages in the Tulsa metro area out of about 300,000 homes and businesses and 4,210 in Bartlesville.

That was down slightly from the morning.

“A lot of people think the storm is over, but it is not,” said Preston Kissman, AEPPSO vice president of distribution.

“There’s still ice falling and tree limbs falling.”

Thousands of linemen have been summoned to the Tulsa region from other areas of the country to help. They are being housed and fed at the Tulsa County fairgrounds.

“It’s still going to be more than a week until we will get to everyone,” Kissman said. “We will make a big impact today and Wednesday. But at this point I have no reason to revise that estimate.”

Crews were busy working to bring electricity back to several high-priority locations, including the Mohawk Water Treatment Plant, which was expected to be up and running by Tuesday night.

Output was increased at the city’s other water plant, A.B. Jewell, but city residents were asked to conserve water as much as possible.

Oklahoma Gas & Electric had a total of about 273,000 outages, most in the Oklahoma City metro area. But the company had about 14,138 dark in Bixby, Bristow, Kellyville and Sapulpa.

Tulsa-area schools were closed Monday and Tuesday and planned to cancel classes for Wednesday as well.

Fire Capt. Larry Bowles said the city has been divided into four quadrants, with 41st Street and Yale Avenue the center point, for officials to asses the damage.

“The northwest and southwest quadrants of the city have sustained much more tree damage, much more power line involvement,” he said.

“But the damage is really widespread. I don’t think there’s an area of the city that hasn’t been affected by this.”

Bowles encouraged city residents to look out for and take care of one another.

“Be good Tulsans,” he said. “Reach out to your neighbors and people in need. This is not going to be something that will be resolved at a rapid pace.”

Public Works crews are working closely with AEPPSO to clear downed tree limbs from the roadways as quickly as possible.

They are not yet removing the fallen branches completely.

That will come later.

“We have about 175 personnel working on this,” said Dan Crossland, Public Works Department deputy director of public facilities.

“We’re working on the arterials right now, and once they are done, we can tackle the residential streets. It’s a big job ahead of us.”

Bowles said residents should not try to remove broken tree limbs from their yards because of all of the live power lines that have fallen.

Once the lines have been removed, residents can begin cleaning the tree debris from their yards and taking it to the curbside for pickup. Public Works will not remove fallen trees off private property.

Bowles also said electrical problems have contributed to at least 80 fires in Tulsa.

EMSA spokeswoman Tina Wells said ambulance calls have been related to carbon monoxide, people who have had tree limbs fall on them and vehicle accidents.

“There are fewer than 100 staffed hospital beds in our community right now,” she said. “Hospitals and EMSA are being overwhelmed by nonlife- threatening issues.”

Residents are encouraged to call the Community Service Council’s 211 assistance line for nonemergency matters.

Police Chief Ron Palmer said police are conducting checks on businesses to make sure there is no rise in theft.

“The city is dark, and that could lead to some potential criminal activity,” he said. “We think this is a good proactive approach to take.”

Palmer also encouraged homeowners who have gone elsewhere to make sure they secured their residences.

Police were called to a local Home Depot to disperse the crowd when several customers went after a limited number of generators, he said.

Many officers are working 12-hour shifts, and about 75 detectives are in uniform and ready to assist, along with the academy recruits, Palmer said.

World staff writers Kevin Canfield, Jason Womack and Clifton Adcock contributed to this story.

Brian Barber 581-8322
brian.barber@tulsaworld.com

Outages:

Number of customers without power, as of 8:45 p.m. Tuesday:

Tulsa metro (includes Broken Arrow, Sand Springs and Owasso): 210,000

Oklahoma City metro: 250,770

Bartlesville: 4,210 (includes Nowata, Oologah and Ramona)

Bixby: 1,587

Bristow: 3,766

Chouteau: 3,018

Grove: 1,681

Sapulpa: 8,450

Vinita: 6,790 (includes Chelsea)

Craig, Delaware, Mayes and Ottawa counties: 16,000

Source: Utilities, Oklahoma Department of Emergency management

Where to call

Report downed tree limbs: Mayor’s Action Center at 596-2100.

Report power outages: AEP-PSO at (888) 218-3919.

Nonemergency assistance: The Community Service Council at (800) 494-0275 or 211.