The massive storms that have moved through over the weekend have taken a toll throughout Oklahoma, including the campus of Oklahoma City University.
Torrential rains accompanied by straight line winds with gusts topping 80 miles an hour came through OKC early Saturday morning and did a fair amount of damage, including downed trees, downed power lines and more.
A screen shot of the radar in OKC on Saturday, Apr. 29, at 5:15 a.m.
OCU spokesperson Leslie Berger praised the people who made it to the sites around campus early Saturday to get the repair effort underway.
“Our facilities crews were out there first thing this morning with our police department and just worked diligently all day long to get everything corrected just as fast as possible,” Berger said. “Our facilities crews have worked most of the day alongside O.G.&E. to clear that debris.
“We had damage to the soccer field and to the baseball field. We lost some fences (at the baseball field). But most substantially the soccer field bleachers went tumbling and tumbled into a house. Thankfully, there were no injuries there.”
The biggest part of the damage apart from the soccer field was at the physical plant. Students living in dorms on campus were without hot water for a while.
“It substantially damaged the physical plant. As far as buildings on campus, that sustained the most damage. About three or four hours after that happened, our physical plant got a temporary boiler up and running, which got hot water flowing to a lot of the campus.”
Both the OCU softball and baseball programs have big roles to play in upcoming events and it is important that the facilities are in working order.
OCU will host bracket play and the championship game of the Sooner Athletic Conference softball tournament Thursday through Saturday.
The SAC baseball tournament will also have bracket play for the baseball tournament, starting Friday.
Additionally, OCU will be a host for an opening round bracket in the NAIA national tournaments for both softball and baseball.
And it looks as though everything will continue to go on as planned.
“We do look alright to be on pace for that,” Berger said. “I don’t think we’ll be delayed any more beyond tomorrow. I think everything will be on schedule after that.”
The final baseball games of the season with Southwestern Assemblies of God were originally postponed from Saturday to Sunday and have since been canceled.