Leading this week's Country Star

Water, water... nowhere: Porum water tower pops its pipes

By Bob Rosenburgh, Staff Writer

PORUM, Aug. 27 — When several big thunderstorms rolled through Southeastern Oklahoma on Aug. 20, there was plenty of wind and rain and no small amount of lightning and thunder.

Tornadoes rampaged to the north and three counties, McIntosh, Haskell and Sequoyah, were put on warning for flash flooding by the National Weather Service.

Despite the severe weather, little damage was reported other than a power line transformer in Stigler hit by an errant lightning flash.

In Porum, though, it was a different story as the whole town went without water for most of the day.

Early that morning, lightning hit the town's 50,000-gallon water tower. The energy of the strike traveled under the ground and exploded a series of pipes that fed Porum's water system.

People began calling the city hall right away, but the repair crew had to wait for a lull in the storm before venturing under the old steel structure while lightning was still active all around the area.

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