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Posted: Jul 06, 2026 8:15 PMUpdated: Jul 06, 2026 8:24 PM
Emergency Management Updates Council on Weekend Storm
Nathan Thompson
Washington County emergency officials are continuing recovery efforts after severe storms with estimated wind gusts of 80 to 85 mph swept through the area over the July 4 weekend, leaving more than 21,000 homes and businesses without power and causing widespread damage.
Washington County Emergency Management Director Kary Cox told the Bartlesville/Washington County Emergency Management Council on Monday that his agency has been responding to multiple emergencies over the past several days, including three structure fires in addition to the windstorm.
"The last four or five days have been pretty busy in our office because of an event that came through this weekend, I think everybody's aware of," Cox said. "But leading up to that, there were several other things that occurred along with the wind event that we experienced. We had three different structure fires that we assisted on prior to that and after that wind event with Bartlesville, with Oglesby, and with Dewey Fire Department."
Cox says the storm produced estimated wind speeds of 80 to 85 mph across Bartlesville, with even higher gusts near Copan.
"Approximately 80-85 mile an hour winds is what we estimated that came through town. I know the Mesonet station up near Copan, I believe, registered 87 mile an hour winds up there," Cox said. "So widespread power outage. At one point we had over 21,000 services that were without power."
Utility crews restored electricity to thousands of customers within days, Cox said. Outages dropped from more than 21,000 immediately after the storm to about 10,000 within the first 24 hours. By Monday morning, that number had fallen to roughly 2,000 and continued declining.
"So I think that's pretty impressive that those crews were able to get in and make that much progress in that short amount of time," he said.
The Emergency Operations Center also lost commercial power for about 24 hours because a permanent backup generator had not yet been installed. Cox says emergency management personnel maintained communications using portable generators before moving operations into the county's mobile command trailer.
The county also deployed two large generators to Copan after the town lost electrical service, affecting its water treatment plant, lake pump station and Rural Water District No. 7. Emergency Management delivered three pallets of bottled water while crews worked to restore service, with one generator still powering the lake pump station as of Monday.
Recovery efforts also included opening four cooling stations, coordinating volunteer chainsaw crews to help remove debris from private property, and organizing meal distribution through the Salvation Army and Baptist Disaster Relief at Madison Middle School.
Cox says Washington County Emergency Management appreciated the cooperation of volunteer organizations, utility providers and Bartlesville Public Schools in supporting the community's recovery.
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