KANSAS CITY, Mo. — According to the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a power outage will leave the schools of medicine and dentistry, as well as the Hospital Hill apartment complex, without power for 24 hours.

UMKC said dental clinics are canceled Thursday, and classes will move to remote learning and work. The nearby Sheraton hotel was also affected.

The power outage did not affect UMKC’s health sciences building.

Evergy said an issue to a circuit in an underground part of the electrical grid caused the outage to the area, impacting up to 700 people.

One of those people was Micala Clay. Wednesday night started off just fine for Clay and her friends. She said they had been out that night, and she was ready to go to bed when she got home.

But when she got back to her hotel, sleep was soon the last thing on her mind.

“It was about 10, maybe 10:30 (p.m.) and that’s when we noticed the lights were out,” Clay said. “They were telling us it was only going to be like an hour or two.”

But it ended up being over 12 hours — no air conditioning, no water and no elevator to get to her room on one of the top floors.

“Who wants to take the stairs like 20 something flights?” Clay said. 

He wasn’t the only one who was frustrated without power.

“They got me in my room, and I at least was able to drop my stuff off and get settled a little bit. But I’m trying to find a place with power to do work,” Jeffrey Gold, who was visiting from Boston, said.

Evergy crews identified the problem as a cable failure, most likely caused by the fluctuation in temperature throughout the day and have been switching many to other circuits.

We have diverted all crews that can work on underground equipment to the area and we are using every resource we can that can fit in the space. However, the fact that the problem is underground will make the repair more difficult and time consuming.

Evergy

Evergy anticipates repairs will be finished by the late afternoon or evening, restoring power to all customers.

UMKC said normal business operations will resume Friday at both schools, including the UMKC Dental Clinics.