Most Evergy Customers See Power Restored

Evergy has restored power to nearly all its customers from Monday night’s and Tuesday afternoon’s snowstorm. At the peak of the snowstorm, there were 35,000 Evergy customers without power. By Tuesday evening at 5 p.m., about 15,000 customers were still without power, with 5,000 in Kansas and 10,000 in Missouri.  By Wednesday evening at 6 pm, there were 100 customers without power, all in the Kansas City area.

As the storm moved through Evergy’s service area during the day Tuesday, crews were restoring power in one area, while they were experiencing new outages in other areas. From 4 a.m. to noon, they had an average of about 150 new outage events per hour, resulting in about 10,500 new customers without power each hour.

In Hutchinson and Wichita, outage numbers were highest early this morning with about 2,000 out in Hutchinson and 13,000 in Wichita. By Tuesday evening, about 500 customers in Hutchinson and 2,000 in the Wichita area were still without power. In the Kansas City metro area, outage numbers were highest with about 25,000 customers out mid-morning. As of Tuesday evening, about 8500 customers in the KC metro area were out. 

Sheridan saw the electricity repeatedly flicker on and off Tuesday afternoon, but it never lost power. Many parts of Harrison County were out, including Eagleville, Blythedale, and Ridgeway.

Outages Tuesday were largely a result of 50 mph winds combined with snow weighing down trees in some areas. Most of the repairs involved clearing vegetation and then replacing broken power lines and fixing switches and related equipment. Many of these work sites are in alleyways and other locations that are difficult to access. Poor conditions and low visibility slowed down restoration efforts.

The snow did not accumulate as much Monday night in this area, but overnight, when temperatures cooled off, snow accumulated, rendering roads impassible Tuesday. Webster City (IA), where the Sheridan Express sends its pages to get printed, was not hit as hard, and they were able to print the paper on time. The mail came both Tuesday and Wednesday.

There were 1,500 employees and contractors, including line and vegetation crews, working on storm restoration efforts. Liberty Utilities, which serves parts of southeast Kansas and southwest Missouri, sent crews to assist. There were crews coming in from Nebraska and other areas of Missouri. Internally, crews from areas that weren’t impacted are assisting in communities with more outages.

Customers can report outages by downloading the Evergy app, going to the Evergy website, or calling 800-LIGHT-KS (800) 544-4857 in Kansas, or 888-LIGHT-KC (888) 544-4852 in Missouri.

People may see Evergy cars and trucks in neighborhoods assessing damage so that line crews have the needed equipment when they arrive. Please let the crews work safely so they can restore power.