17 July 2023
TOPEKA (KSNT) – While Evergy crews are working to restore power around town, many homeowners are busy cleaning up their yards after Friday’s storm. Though many are still without electricity, an Evergy spokeperson says full restoration for all customers could take days.
Evergy’s Gina Penzig told 27 News the storm knocked out power for thousands of customers in parts of Kansas and Missouri. Evergy, in collaboration with neighboring contractors and utility departments, already restored power for a large portion of their customers, but there’s still work to be done.
“We have about two thousand people out in the field working to restore power across our service area,” Penzig said of Evergy’s response to the storm. “We expect to add another thousand people today. So, we are calling on neighbors to help make sure that we can speed up the restoration effort and get power back to everyone. We will continue to work until power is back on.”
Every crews are busy driving through neighborhoods for damage assessments to get a grasp of what kind of repairs are needed. This allows for repair crews to gather the right equipment and address issues more efficiently.
After a storm, Penzig said Evergy prioritizes restoring power to public service buildings, like hospitals and police departments first. Then, they address issues that serve the largest number of customers, like fixing general power lines, before getting to individual homes.
Brad Merryman and Jeff Montague, who have lived in their home in West Topeka for four years, are two of the thousands of Topekans who lost power after the storm. Merryman said it was the worst storm he’s ever seen in the area.
“It got real dark, real fast,” Merryman said. “And it started to blow the patio umbrella behind me and I came out and lowered it so it wouldn’t blow away. And then it started raining really hard, really fast.”
The two spent their Saturday trying to clean up debris around their house. Fallen limbs in their backyard and on their roof are so large, they said they’ll have to call a tree service to remove them. Merryman expects it to take days to get their home back in order.