Thousands left without power after weather system rolls through Kansas City, winds remain

Thousands of customers were left without power after a storm system and windy conditions blew through the Kansas City area Tuesday.

Evergy spokesman Shane Batchelder said in an email to The Star that after morning outages, crews were able to make “great” progress on restoring power, but another round of weather in the afternoon caused additional outages.

Across the utility’s full service area in both Kansas and Missouri, about 19,000 customers were without power as of 3 p.m., with a peak of 16,000 total customers seeing outages Tuesday in the metro area, he said.

“We expect most customers currently out of power to be restored by the end of the day, while some outages requiring pole replacements may take a little longer,” he said. “Our men and women will continue to work as safely and quickly as possible to restore service to those impacted. We continue to monitor the storm as it continues to impact parts of our area. We appreciate the patience of our customers while crews work.”

Around 3 p.m., the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department said its headquarters would be closed for the rest of the day because of a power outage.

“This does not impact our communications center or officer response to calls for service,” the department said in a social media post.

The peak wind gust reported at the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport in Kansas City Tuesday reached 53 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Other max gust reports around the metro saw winds reach above 30 mph.