News Releases

Storms began to move across the Evergy service area about 7 p.m. Saturday near Wichita. The most severe weather and damage occurred several hours later in the Kansas City metro area south of I-70, including Shawnee, Kansas City, Lee’s Summit, and Blue Springs. Over the course of the storms, about 140,000 customers lost power. As of 10:30 a.m. Sunday, about 71,000 customers are still without power due to about 2,000 outage events that will require repairs. Weather included a downburst, which can have tornado-strength winds, that was reported to have straight-line 70 mph winds near the I-70 corridor in the Kansas City metro area and lasted nearly 10 minutes. 

Evergy crews began power restoration overnight as soon as it was safe to do so. Tree crews and line crews are focusing first on main lines that are necessary to get power into neighborhoods. While these repairs are under way, damage assessment teams are canvassing areas with outages to ensure that when the vegetation crews are assigned, the line crews arrive with the appropriate equipment. Evergy is also reaching out to neighboring utilities for assistance. While power has been restored to nearly half of impacted customers, because of the severe damage to some areas, restoration will be a multi-day event.  

A majority of the outages from this storm are due to the significant wind. Many poles need to be repaired or replaced and down lines need to be safely replaced. Please stay at least 35 feet away from downed power lines or limbs on lines. Please do not try to remove tree limbs or brush from downed lines or anywhere near power lines. Please assume that any downed line is energized. If you have an emergency, please call 911. 

Download the Evergy mobile app: You can report an outage and keep up with outage updates by downloading the Evergy mobile app: https://www.evergy.com/about-evergy/mobile-app or visit the outage map online: https://outagemap.evergy.com/. 

If you have an emergency, please call 911 or contact the call center. 
Kansas Central: 800-544-4857 
Kansas Metro, Missouri Metro, and Missouri West: 888-544-4852