kansas city storms
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Nearly 100,000 people woke up without power Sunday morning after severe storms swept through the Kansas City area overnight, downing trees and power lines. Some outages are expected to stretch into Monday amid potentially dangerous heat.

Widespread power outages were being reported across the Kansas City area after winds from the storms reached 70 mph and produced heavy lightning.

Kansas City Power & Light reported on Facebook that as many as 112,000 customers were without power at the height of the storm. Overnight, it assessed the total impact of the damage and called in all available crews to restore power.

By 8:30 a.m. Sunday, about 71,000 customers remained without power. KCP&L said it expected outages to continue into Monday.

"This will be a multi-day restoration," said Jeremy McNeive, manager of media communications for KCP&L.

"Right now it looks like the bulk of it seems to be downed wires and poles," he said. "We have around 180 linemen and contractors. We've reached out to neighboring for assistance so we expect to have more in the field here in the next few hours."


The areas affected the most by power outages were Clay, Johnson and Jackson counties.

About 1,600 of KCP&L's customers in Fairway were without power - that's about 85 percent of its customers in that city. The utility reported that 2,386 customers, or about 68 percent, were without power in Roeland Park.

In Mission, 3,038 customers, or 47 percent, were without power. In Liberty, 4,342, or 34 percent, were without power. And in Prairie Village, 3,112 or about 29 percent, had no power.

Other cities that had significant outages included Kansas City, with about 24,091 customers, or about 10 percent, without power; Leawood, 1,472, or about 10 percent; Merriam, 1,004, or about 18 percent; Overland Park, 10,737 or about 11 percent; Raytown, 3,193, or about 22 percent; and Shawnee, 6152, or 30 percent.

Independence Power and Light reported that nearly 8,000 customers were without power. The Kansas City, Kan., Board of Public Utilities also reported that 13,804 customers were without power.

The National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill said that while Sunday was not expected to be as hot as the last few days, the heat could still pose problems for the thousands without air conditioning.

Highs on Sunday were expected to be in the lower to mid 90s, but the heat index could climb to 100 degrees, which could be hazardous to those without power.

During the outages, KCP&L's McNeive advised people not to touch or pick up any downed power lines. They should assume any downed lines are electrified.

The biggest concern, however, will be the heat.