UPDATED Monday, 8 a.m.: More than 12,000 people remain without power Monday morning after storms this weekend damaged trees and power lines across the Kansas City metro area.
Kansas City Power & Light crews are continuing to repair power lines and restore power to customers. That work is slower with these storms than others, according to a Kansas City Power and Light official.
“There were a high number of individual outages so that’s why this restoration is taking a little bit longer than what we’ve seen in some other storms,” said Courtney Hughley, Kansas City Power and Light spokesperson.
Original story continues below.
A line of storms brought winds of 70 to 75 miles per hour to the Kansas City metro area Saturday night, causing widespread damage to tree limbs and power outages persisting into Sunday.
Kansas City Power & Light reported on Twitter that at the peak of the outages, 93,000 customers—more than 10 percent—were without power in the utility's service area, which covers 46 counties in Kansas and Missouri.
By Sunday evening at 8:30 p.m., 23,046 customers remained without power, down from more than 33,000 Sunday afternoon. The number includes 11.480 customers in Kansas City, Missouri. Some of the highest outage percentages were reported in Kansas City's suburban communities, including Blue Springs, Claycomo, Gladstone, Raytown, Fairway and Roeland Park. The utility said outages in some areas would likely last until Monday evening.
While widespread, damage seemed mostly limited to trees, downed power lines and individuals homes and vehicles.
Several local events were affected as storms swept through just before 10 p.m. Organizers shut down the Boulevardia festival in the West Bottoms; Funk Fest at the Providence Medical Center Amphitheater in Bonner Springs, Kansas; and the Willie Nelson concert at the StarLight Theater in Swope Park.
ALERT: we cannot safely continue w/ the schedule. Thank you for your patience, but we are officially closing our borders. Be safe, #blvdia.
— Boulevardia (@Blvdia) June 18, 2017
Due to lightning in the area creating unsafe conditions, for the safety of our patrons, the remainder of Funk Fest has been cancelled.
— Providence Amp KC 🧷 (@ProvidenceAmpKC) June 18, 2017
Kansas City Power & Light maintains a power outage map with the latest information.
Brian Ellison is a host/contributor for KCUR 89.3. He can be reached at brian@kcur.org or followed on Twitter @ptsbrian.
KCUR morning news intern Katie Bernard contributed to this story.
