Latest News and Updates
Stay up-to-date on power outages and restoration progress
June 9, 2022 – 9:00 am
Evergy crews have restored power to more than 95% of customers who lost power during Tuesday night’s storm. Currently, there are about 4,700 customers without power with more than 420 outage events. We expect all customers to be restored today.
Over 1,000 field personnel (including more than 650 linemen) are working to restore power in the Kansas City metro area. All available Evergy crews from all over the service area will be in Kansas City today restoring power. There was extensive damage to the electrical system across the entire KC metropolitan area, including wires down and poles damaged and down. Trees were severely damaged, and many roadways have been littered with tree and other storm debris making access to some areas challenging.
June 8, 2022 – 3:30 pm
Evergy crews have restored power to about 80% of affected customers. Currently, there are about 16,000 customers without power with more than 840 outage events.
Work is expected to extend into Thursday as crews begin to focus more on repairs that take longer to complete or events impacting smaller numbers of customers. Additional crews from other Evergy communities are arriving to join about 1,000 field personnel who have been working to restore power in the Kansas City metro area. Crews will continue to work around the clock until power is restored to all customers.
June 8, 2022 – 2:30 pm
Evergy crews continue to make great progress today. In the first 12 hours following the storm, crews have restored power to nearly 75% of the 75,000 customers who lost power. While the majority of customers will have power restored today, given the extensive damage and widespread outages, Evergy will still be restoring power to customers tomorrow.
Watch restoration progress update provided by Director of Regional Operations, Corey Miller:
June 8, 2022 – 7:15 am
At around 1:15 am a significant storm system hit the Kansas City metro area. Radar confirmed tornadoes touched down in the Kearney and Excelsior Springs area as well as a tornado around 95th street in Leawood and headed east toward the KC metro. The tornadic winds were followed by a line of thunderstorms and hail that were in the KC area and causing damage for a couple of hours. The National Weather Service reported winds in excess of 80 mph in parts of the KC metro area.
Outages began around 1:00 am and continued to grow until about 4:30 am. Overall, about 80,000 customers lost power. Overnight, crews restored power to nearly 25% of customers impacted by the storm. Currently, there are more than 52,000 customers without power with about 1,100 outage events. There was extensive damage to the electrical system across the entire KC metropolitan area, including wires down and poles damaged and down.The hardest hit areas were:
- Northland (Including Liberty and Platte City)– 30,680 Outages/499 Events
- KC South Metro – 10,942 Outages/216 Events
- JoCo– 6,320 Outages/131 Events
Safety is our priority
- Please remember to assume any downed power lines are live and do not approach them. Also be watchful for tree limbs that are in contact or could become in contact with power lines. Do not attempt to remove them.
- Customers are encouraged to keep cell phones charged. Have flashlights, batteries, water and non-perishable food on hand, as well as a communication plan for family members to connect if an emergency situation occurs.
Additional information
All available crews are restoring power and will continue working until customers are back on. Additional contract crews have been brought in for assistance.
Our proactive maintenance work, including tree trimming and vegetation management, is our best defense against high winds, but extreme conditions can still pose a threat to the power grid, causing system damage and outages.
You may have a lot of questions about your outage specifically — especially if you're still waiting for power to come back on. We want to address those questions here:
- If you're a medical customer relying on electricity for life-support equipment, view information on how you can make special arrangements
Why don't I have an estimated restoration time (ERT)?
Normally, you can see an ERT for your outage. But when there's a major outage situation, we don't know an estimated time for restoration because:
- The weather, flooding or road conditions can affect how long it takes for a crew to reach a site
- Crews have to determine what repair is needed and this assessment time can vary depending on how significant damage is
- Repairs can take hours in some cases — if tree limbs take down lines, crews must remove the tree and sometimes rebuild the entire power pole, all of the equipment on it and string new power lines
One outage can affect a single customer or thousands of customers, so the time needed to restore each outage varies greatly. When all of these factors above are taken into account and multiplied by numerous outages, we're unable to give accurate or even predicted restoration times.
Why isn't my power back on?
We have a power restoration process in place to address public safety first (hospitals, police and fire stations, etc.) then to move to substations (which are primary lines serving thousands of customers at once). You can dig deeper into that process here to learn more about why power comes back on in the order it does.
Why did my neighbor's power come on and mine didn't?
Your neighbors, although very close to you, may be on a different supply line or transformer. The reason their power may have come back on before yours is available in our restoration process.
You can find more answers in our Help Center, or view our map guide if you want more information on navigating the outage map.
