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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Thousands of customers are still without electricity Thursday as the Kansas City area deals with the after-effects of a high wind warning and severe storms.

Wind speeds around 50-60 mph have caused tree damage, downed power lines and other problems throughout the area. The Kansas City area also experienced severe thunderstorms where the downtown Kansas City airport recorded a wind gust over 75 mph.

Evergy’s outages map shows over 2,700 outages, as of 1 p.m. Thursday, affecting over 38,000 customers in its Kansas and Missouri coverage area.

Evergy Chief Customer Officer Charles Caisley said that this was one of the largest, if not the largest, number of outages in company history. At the peak, there were about 200,000 Evergy customers without power.

This wind/storm event hit Evergy’s entire coverage area. The hardest hit service areas were Salina, Kansas; St. Joseph, Missouri; and the KC metro.

Now Evergy is working to get service restored, but Caisley admitted it will take some time. He said there’s no way to get this number of outages restored in one day, and this will, unfortunately, be a multi-day outage event for some.

There are 1,100 Evergy personnel, including linemen, vegetation management crews, contractors and call takers, working to get the power back on. They have also reached out for help from companies in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Colorado.

If you’re an Evergy customer and have an outage:

  • Use your cell phone or tablet to report it online.
  • Call Evergy’s automated outage reporting by calling 888-544-4852.

In Independence, the city’s Power and Light Department is reporting 11 outages as of 1 p.m. Thursday. About 70 customers are affected.

Independence Power and Light shared these steps for customers to report outages and other power-related problems:

  • Call 816-325-7550 to report the outage.
  • If you are calling from the phone number associated with your account, the system will recognize your address. Otherwise you will need to enter your address or the phone number on your account.
  • Your address will be added to the outage map. Outage locations are not exact on the map.
  • A crew will be dispatched to assess and fix the problem.
  • IPL recommends you select the option for a call back after crews have restored the power to ensure that crews have dealt with all the issues regarding your outage.

The Board of Public Utilities in Wyandotte County is also reporting 136 outages as of 9 p.m. Wednesday. Over 1,306 customers are without power in Wyandotte County.

BPU customers who experience an outage can call the utility company’s outage line at 913-573-9522 to report it.