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Storms In Kansas City Down Trees, Knock Out Power For Thousands

Sam Zeff
/
KCUR
Traffic signals were down or flashing at intersections, like this one at Meyer Blvd. and Troost in Kansas City, Missouri.

Update, 8:04 a.m., Saturday

At the moment, Westar Energy isn't reporting any outages in Wyandotte or Johnson counties. Independence Power & Light reports 3,798 customers without power. The Kansas City Board of Public Utilities reports 9,873.

Kansas City Power & Light reports 22,447 outages in Jackson County and 2,333 in Johnson County.

Original post continues below

At around 2 a.m. on Friday, a storm with winds up to 80 mph rolled through the Kansas City metro area, taking down trees and power lines.

About 150,000 area residents reported power outages, including more than 100,000 Kansas City Power & Light customers. 

Credit Laura Spencer / KCUR
/
KCUR
The path of the storm went through wooded areas of the city, such as the Troostwood neighborhood just east of Troost.

"We saw a lot of high winds, we saw lightning," says KCP&L spokesperson Courtney Hughley. "All of which were bringing down trees, which brought down power lines and poles." 

Independence Power & Light reported more than 42,000 without power. For Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, it was 14,000 power outages. And about 900 Westar Energy customers in Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties were without power.

The concentration of the damage, according to Hughley, was in "Kansas City proper."

"At the peak of the storm, we saw nearly 110,00 customers without power, which makes this the largest single storm since our ice storm of 2002," says Hughley.

Since the early morning hours, line and tree crews have been working to clear debris and restore power to area residents. As of 11:30 am, 77,500 KCP&L customers were still without power. For the latest numbers check out the KCP&L outages map here.

"It's an all-hands on deck situation right now," Hughley says. "We've made quite a bit of progress, but still have a long way to go." 

Hughley says crews will continue to work through Friday and Saturday. But it's possible some customers will remain without power throughout the weekend. 

Kansas City is known for its style of jazz, influenced by the blues, as the home of Walt Disney’s first animation studio and the headquarters of Hallmark Cards. As one of KCUR’s arts reporters, I want people here to know a wide range of arts and culture stories from across the metropolitan area. I take listeners behind the scenes and introduce them to emerging artists and organizations, as well as keep up with established institutions. Send me an email at lauras@kcur.org or follow me on Twitter @lauraspencer.
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