Storm Knocks Power Out of Area

Storms Wednesday afternoon and evening knocked power out of the area. Sheridan lost power at around 5:30 that evening; service was restored at 7:23, but the lights flickered on and off for another 40 minutes before they finally stayed on. Grant City was without power from 6:30 to 10:30 pm. Some parts of Hopkins and Pickering didn’t lose power at all, but the school was out until noon Thursday, meaning school was called off that day. 

There were sustained winds of at least 30 mph with these storms, which stretched from Oklahoma to Wisconsin. The National Weather Service issued over 50 tornado warnings all night. A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for the area and then extended. 

There were winds as high as 90 mph in Omaha and Lincoln, and there was a wildfire in Kansas that blew smoke into the area. The Taylor County Sheriff’s Department got calls about the smoke, which could be smelled as far east as the Illinois border. There were at least six tornadoes spawned in Iowa.

However, the area was spared some of the worst damage. Part of a tree went down on the south end of Sheridan. Winds blew down sheds east of town, blew some windows out of the Grant City Post Office, and blew down both sheds in Mark Fletcher’s yard. The storm uprooted a tree in Maitland.

At its peak, around 258,000 Evergy customers, or over 15%, were without power. By Thursday, power was restored to all but 20,000 customers although some outages extended into the weekend. Service to most areas was restored by Sunday. Downed power lines, broken poles, and other damage complicated the work.

Over 250 people from other utilities came and assisted Evergy with the restoration of power, including crews from Ameren, Liberty Utilities, and the City of Springfield. Crews worked around the clock to restore power.

United Electric reported that their system had 115 broken poles and many more downed wires. At the height of the storm, around 3,300 customers, or 40% of their customers, were without power. The first outage came in at 4:30 pm Wednesday, and service was restored to most customers by around 11 pm Thursday night. All 24 lineman worked 30 hours until all power was restored. They received help from Kiowa and Platte-Clay Electric.