Tuesday’s severe thunderstorm that passed across central Oklahoma destroyed a big wind turbine at one of the nation’s largest wind farms.
One of the turbines was on fire when emergency personnel arrived at the Traverse Wind Energy Center at 4:30 p.m.
Video footage from the site depicted what is thought to be one of the enormous GE turbines on the ground with its support structure crumpled as if it were made of cardboard.
A representative from the Public Service Company of Oklahoma said that the site was safe and that no one was hurt.
The utility company said they are looking into what happened, but the scene looked like what happened to a wind turbine in Texas when it was hit directly by lightning in late July.
Doppler radar showed that there was a lot of lightning near the Traverse wind farm before the turbine caught fire, but officials haven’t said for sure if lightning was a factor.
One of the largest wind farms in the world is located in Oklahoma and is powered by 356 GE turbines. The farm covers two counties and is spread out across the state.
The utility company stated that the plant did not sustain any additional damage as a result of the storms.
