When will your power come back on? Evergy is working on it, getting more help

After torrential rain and intense winds battered south central Kansas on Monday night and Tuesday morning, Evergy crews have been working to restore power to 45,000 customers left without electricity.

But another round of thunderstorms may affect how quickly power is restored in and around Wichita.

Crews have made “tremendous progress” so far in restoring power to those affected, Evergy spokesperson Courtney Lewis said. As of 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, line crews had reconnected electricity to 65% of those affected by outages. That leaves about 15,500 in the Wichita region still without power. See the Evergy outage map here.

“We know that, especially this time of year, when we are in severe weather season, that people in Wichita and the surrounding communities and just across the Midwest, we are no strangers to this kind of weather,” Lewis said. “But it’s still frustrating. It’s still very frustrating when you lose power. So we have our crews out there working as hard as they can.”

By 10 a.m. Tuesday, the National Weather Service’s hourly rainfall totals reported more than two inches of rain at the Eisenhower National Airport. Additionally, the airport recorded high winds, with a gust of 101 mph a little after 4 a.m.

Wichita, Hutchinson, Newton and Derby were the hardest hit areas, Lewis said. Downed power lines, poles and trees comprise a majority of the damages reported to the electric services company.

More than 150 line workers are expected to arrive in Wichita later Tuesday from Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska and Oklahoma to help with restoring power, she said.

“We’re really glad that we have the additional manpower coming in to help our Evergy crews,” Lewis said.

While it’s too early to tell, Lewis said these workers may stick around depending on the severity of the weather Tuesday afternoon and night.

“Everything really depends on what this next round of weather brings, whether it materializes, how severe it is, where it hits,” Lewis said.

Crews will be working to restore as much power as possible ahead of tonight’s predicted storms, she said.

It’s too early to determine when power will be completely restored, mostly because of the unpredictability of the upcoming weather, she said.

“We can’t go house to house until we have the main lines that feed into those neighborhoods repaired first,” Lewis said. “So we prioritize our outages to first restore to emergency services, and then we work to get the greatest number of customers restored first. So kind of like restoring those power backbones that go into those neighborhoods.”

Lewis said people shouldn’t be discouraged if they see an Evergy vehicle arrive at a site and quickly leave — it’s likely members of the damage assessment team collecting information to report to line crews.

“So they may arrive in an Evergy vehicle, and you may see that Evergy vehicle, and they’re going to be there for a bit, but then you may see that Evergy vehicle leave. Well, we didn’t abandon you, we didn’t forget about you,” Lewis said. “That assessment team is there taking a look at, OK, this is the kind of damage that this home has, or the street has, and they communicate that back to our line crews to say, this is the kind of damage, so you’re going to need X, Y and Z pieces of equipment to address that. It really helps us work more efficiently.”

In the meantime, Lewis said, the period between storms is the perfect time for people to assemble or update their emergency kits.

“We are no strangers to this kind of severe weather here in the Midwest, but it’s always a good reminder to make sure that people have their emergency kit ready, that they have charged devices, extra batteries, flashlights, a weather radio, or just a regular battery powered radio, water bottles, non perishable food, just to prepare,” Lewis said. “Because … (it’s) always better to be prepared and not needing it, then when you need it and you don’t have it.”

People should stay at least 30 feet away from downed power lines.

“Always assume that all downed lines are energized, just because it’s laying there, not doing anything,” Lewis said. “You don’t know if it still is energized.”

If people see downed power lines, they should call 911 immediately and alert Evergy. Safety is the priority, Lewis said.

“We know our customers want to be safe, and we know that we want our customers to be safe, and we want our crews in the field to be safe, to prioritize safety when they’re restoring,” Lewis said. “ … They’ll be able to move through and do restoration once active weather systems move out, but we want everybody to know that they are working as safely as quickly as possible to get everybody’s power back on as soon as they can.”