Public housing officials discuss the situation at the high-rise for elderly and disabled people.

Power was restored at Murdock Villa on Wednesday, 2-1/2 days after the public housing center for elderly and disabled people lost electricity.

The six-story structure at 828 S. Wheeling Ave. lost electricity during an ice storm Sunday along with much of northeastern Oklahoma.

Meanwhile, Tulsa Housing Authority officials defended their actions following the storm.

Murdock Villa is one of four high-rise communities operated by the authority.

Roy Hancock, the authority's executive director, said its officials have managed the catastrophe well, given the circumstances.

"I think as a whole, I think we feel we are on top of it, and I think the question remains, of course, whether we will stay on top of it, and it's depending how long this goes on," he said.

Only two of the authority's 18 communities had full electric power as of Wednesday morning, Hancock said.

A backup generator powered one elevator and hallway lights at Murdock Villa.

The American Red Cross, following a request Tuesday by the authority, began serving meals Wednesday at Murdock Villa and four other authority centers, a Red Cross spokeswoman confirmed.

Hancock said, "I don't think we've had any horror stories as of this point in time."

One Murdock Villa resident, however, was hospitalized

Hancock said managers and service coordinators were told Tuesday to be at Murdock Villa and other communities for at least two hours beginning that day.

"Of course they had been there sporadically checking on their sites and checking on their residents," he said of his employees.

However, some Murdock Villa residents indicated that no housing authority workers conducted door-to-door checks of residents.

Responding to these accounts, Hancock said, "I know that we've told the managers and they know it was their responsibility to check on them as well, but I can't tell you for sure on specifics, even at Murdock."

In regard to the timing of the meeting of administrators, Hancock said: "Tuesday is when we met. All of us individually too are without power ourself; we're all trying to cope with the situation, so we met Tuesday morning, which was the earliest we could meet."

He disputed claims that Murdock Villa residents did not know that the authority made available portable generators to residents who wanted to recharge battery-operated medical devices.

"They are being made available, and Murdock is always the first one that calls the press no matter what, and of course you guys respond just like the news media does," Hancock said. "So the next time something comes up, they call the press even before we can get situated; they do that."

An offer by housing authority workers to take a small number of residents to a shelter fell through Tuesday when one shelter was full and a second shelter did not have electricity, he said.

The housing authority's chairwoman, Ruth Nelson, said the issue of obtaining backup generators to provide full power to housing authority sites has come up before.

"It would be great, but we've only been able in the last 10 years to air-condition our family sites," Nelson said. "As with everything else, we've been subjected to repeated budget cuts from HUD and we have a capital budget that we use to improve our sites . . . but there's a limit and we've got to spread it around." HUD is the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Nelson noted that in the past Tulsa Housing Authority sites facilities were designated as important by the local electric power provider.

"When PSO was just PSO we had very good relations with the local people, who realized particularly our high-rises housed elderly, and we would be on the priority list after hospitals and those kinds of places," she said. "But that didn't happen this time."

A spokesman for American Electric Power-Public Service Company of Oklahoma said residential centers such as Murdock Villa receive a "second or third tier" ranking by the utility in terms of power restoration.

"I'm hoping that whatever frustration they are having is based on this one event, but this is certainly something that in Tulsa is unprecedented," said the spokesman, Stan Whiteford.

"Hopefully we are taking care of them, but certainly we want to have relationships with them and see what we can do to make sure we are working hand in hand."