The region started coming back to life late last week after a storm dropped about four inches of sleet beginning Jan. 23 and continuing through that weekend.
Area schools, including Southeastern, were closed for all of last week.
Southeastern was able to have basketball games Jan. 29 at Bloomer Sullivan Arena and The Midwestern Conference Wrestling Tournament was held Jan. 30 and 31 at Choctaw Event Center.
Earlier this week, patches of ice remained on the roadways, sidewalks and parking lots. Many streets had been cleared by public works and parking lots were cleared, leaving piles of ice.
Awnings collapsed from the weight of the ice and boat docks on Lake Texoma were damaged. Bryan County EMS paramedic Mindi (Welch) Allen, 36, died from injuries received when she fell outside of her home on Jan. 25, according to Bryan County EMS.
Her funeral was Wednesday at the Bryan County EMS facility.
The Durant Police Department said officers assisted 179 motorists and investigated two injury and 20 non-injury accidents.
Durant Schools Superintendent Mark Moring spoke of storm damage during a Monday meeting of the Durant Board of Education.
“Obviously, we were out five days last week,” Moring said. “It was crazy how much ice we had. As far as in the district damage, we had a few damaged gutters. We have a few leaks. If you’ve been by Robert E. Lee, both awnings over the playgrounds have collapsed. So, we’re busy trying to remove those.”
The district has to replace a blade and bucket on equipment used to clear parking lots, according to Moring. The school district has a John Deere tractor and a skid steer.
“We scraped a lot, just look at the high school,” Moring said. “I don’t know how many football fields of concrete up there, so we scraped a lot.”
Moring thanked school maintenance employees, custodians and the City of Durant for their help last week. The city cleared the street and alley at the early childhood center.
“I was driving around Robert E. Lee, Washington Irving and the middle school that seemed to be the ones that were the heaviest hit in residential areas,” Moring said. “Robert E. Lee is a lot because there’s no sunshine on that alley or the other side so it doesn’t melt as well. They were awesome in trying to get us up and ready. Obviously, as much ice as we had, it’s never going to be perfect because we’re not in the ice plow business. When you only have a tractor and a skid steer, it makes it a little more difficult, but we had our people up here, the city people up here, so I was really pleased about that.”
Moring said he expected an announcement this week on whether the school district would be required to have make-up days.
In comments at the end of the meeting, school board member Janie Umsted spoke about the storm.
“I’ve never seen anything like that in all of my 79 years,” Umsted said.
Moring said, “I feel blessed that we got out with just some of the damage that we did. To me, the guttering and the awnings at REL are the biggest thing that we need to get fixed.”
