'Some crews currently going on 14 hours on the scene': Evergy crews work through the night to repair storm, tornado damage

TOPEKA (KSNT) - Work crews for power provider Evergy are working around the clock to repair downed power lines in Kansas and Missouri on Thursday following a round of severe weather.

27 News spoke with Evergy to learn the extent of the damage caused to the local power grid by the thunderstorms and tornadic activity on the night of March 13. A mixture of storms, strong winds and hail caused widespread damage across northeast Kansas.

Evergy spokeswoman Courtney Lewis told 27 News the power company's system did "extremely well" during the violent storms. In total, Evergy reported 3,770 outages across its service areas in Kansas and Missouri with around 290 customers still without power by 11:30 a.m. on March 14.

"Evergy crews worked through the night to restore power – some crews currently going on 14 hours on the scene," Lewis said. "It’s paid off as most of the remaining outages are no more than a handful across a few areas."

Lewis said the hardest-hit place was the area around Rossville where a tornado is attributed as causing nine power distribution poles to be damaged Wednesday night. The loss of these poles caused more than 850 Evergy customers in the area to lose power. This number shrunk to around 40 customers by 10 a.m. on Thursday with crews working to restore power to the last of the customers impacted by the storm.

"Evergy crews from Manhattan, Emporia, and Lawrence are assisting the crews in Rossville, and we expect to have all 9 poles repaired today," Lewis said.

You can keep track of current outages being reported by Evergy by checking out its outage map online. You can report outages to Evergy by using this link.

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