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Updated: July 10, 2022 @ 5:53 am Fire and thick, black smoke engulf a portion of the ONEOK natural gas plant south of Medford Saturday, following an explosion at the Grant County facility along U.S. 81. (Billy Hefton / Enid News & Eagle) Fire rages inside the ONEOK natural gas plant south of Medford along U.S. 81 Saturday , July 9, 2022 . (Billy Hefton / Enid News & Eagle) Fire and thick, black smoke engulf a portion of the ONEOK natural gas plant south of Medford Saturday, following an explosion at the Grant County facility along U.S. 81. (Billy Hefton / Enid News & Eagle) Fire rages inside the ONEOK natural gas plant south of Medford along U.S. 81 Saturday , July 9, 2022 . (Billy Hefton / Enid News & Eagle) MEDFORD , Okla. , An explosion and resulting fire at a ONEOK natural gas plant Saturday in Grant County saw a mass power outage and nearby residents evacuate their homes while local emergency authorities spent several hours controlling the blaze.
Though power was restored by OG&E hours later, an evacuation advisement from the Grant County Sheriff’s Office for Medford residents living south of Oklahoma 11 was still in place by Saturday evening, Sheriff Scott Sterling told the News & Eagle.
The plant sits about 2 miles south of Medford on U.S. 81, which also remained closed between Pond Creek and Medford on Saturday evening.
Both 81 north and Oklahoma 11 east and west out of Medford were reopened, Sterling said.
Based on information from ONEOK, he said, residents within a 2-mile radius of the plant were advised to evacuate their homes and seek shelter at local public buildings such as Medford Public Schools, Grant County Expo Center in Pond Creek and several area churches, according to the sheriff’s office.
After their home’s power went out, Medford resident Jessica Willets and her family were the only people at the expo center Saturday afternoon, staying there for a few hours.
Free water was provided to those at the expo center, 12 miles south of Medford. “My heart broke,” Willets said. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and I just prayed to God that no one was there and that nobody got hurt. “That’s the good thing about living in a small town , people really come together to help,” she said.
Sterling said he hadn’t heard of any known injuries from the explosion or the fire.
All ONEOK facility personnel were accounted for, a spokesperson from ONEOK said. “We are cooperating with local emergency responders and appreciate their quick response,” ONG spokesperson Brad Borror said in an email Saturday afternoon. “Our focus continues working with emergency responders to extinguish the fire and the safety of the surrounding community and our employees.” Borror did not provide details about the cause of the explosion in his email.
He was later unable to be reached Saturday evening.
Residents who were temporarily displaced from their homes were also offered temporary accommodations at several hotels in Enid, over 30 miles southwest.
ONEOK reportedly made arrangements for overnight stays with the Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Springhill Suites, La Quinta Inn & Suites and Baymont, according to the county sheriff’s office’s Facebook page.
The Super 8 in Blackwell, 25 miles east of Medford, also offered discounted room rates, and the general manager later said only a few of the hotel’s 43 rooms were still available by Saturday evening. “I wanted to make sure (residents) knew that somebody cared for them and wanted them to be safe,” hotel manager Mitzi Graham said.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol was notified of the explosion at the liquids fractionation facility shortly before 2:30 p.m.
At around 2:45, OHP cordoned off U.S. 81 from both the north and the south, while the sheriff’s office advised the evacuation about an hour after the incident.
Sterling said the fire was still burning on Saturday evening, but nowhere near the extent when he first arrived near the area of the blaze. “It was a very large fire.
Whenever I first arrived near that area, I was pretty much shocked at what I saw,” Sterling said. “You could hear it and feel it.” He said he didn’t know the extent of damage to the ONEOK plant, but there was none to the area outside of the facility.
Emergency personnel from both Garfield and Kay counties reportedly responded to the incident, as well as Kremlin Fire Department and Garfield County Sheriff’s Office.
Click for the latest, full-access Enid News & Eagle headlines | Text Alerts | app downloads Ewald is copy editor and city/education reporter for the Enid News & Eagle.
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