Hennessey residents were left sweating in the dark on a very hot Monday night, August 18th, after a lightning strike hit the OG&E substation on Cemetery Road, knocking out power to much of the town.
The outage began around 8:50 p.m. when a bolt of lightning struck equipment in the substation, sparking a small fire in the northeast corner. The Hennessey Fire Department responded after a resident reported hearing a loud bang and seeing flames.
According to OG&E, the outage affected approximately 854 customers, stretching from Hennessey east to I-35. In town, the north side was hardest hit, including all of Main Street from Love’s Travel Stop northward.
Crews from OG&E arrived on scene around 10:15 p.m. and began repairs. By 11 p.m., power had been restored town-wide, bringing relief on what had been an uncomfortably hot evening.
Although it never rained in Hennessey, thunderstorms north and west of Hennessey earlier in the evening caused widespread outages and damage along Hwy 132 from Hwy 51 to Lahoma. Several fires were sparked west of Hennessey near the Cimarron River from lightning strikes, keeping Hennessey, Loyal, and Ames firefighters busy throughout the early evening. Photo by AAH Jack Quirk
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