Engineering firm in town to survey electric grid, may need to enter private property

Nov. 2—Surveyors from an Oklahoma City firm are in Claremore to assess damage the city's electric grid sustained from the May tornado.

John Feary, Claremore's city manager, said personnel from CEC will have to enter residential property located along the storm's path. Feary said the city granted the firm the necessary easements to enter people's backyards and alleyways.

Feary said CEC surveyors will do their best to notify property owners when they arrive and should be identifiable by their uniforms and ID cards.

He said though the city's electric grid has been functional since the tornado, workers only made temporary fixes. CEC will identify where the grid requires permanent repairs.

"There are hundreds — if not thousands — of splices and other things," Feary said. "Now, we've got to bring everything up into code."

Feary said surveyors would also identify locations in the grid that might have previously been up to code but no longer are; the law only mandates the city to bring parts of the grid up to code when it's making repairs.

He said CEC workers would be in Claremore for 30 to 45 days. Then, he said, the city will contract out the work to repair the grid.

"[That way] I can keep our Power and Light crews on doing the work that they had already had in their program of work for the year," Feary said.