Numerous trees were damaged as a result of a severe storm overnight Saturday into Sunday morning, and a few hundred Evergy customers in the area were without power.
Eight powerlines were down in Douglas County, including four in Lawrence, two in Eudora and two in Baldwin City, according to Douglas County Emergency Management.
There were no reports of storm-related injuries in Douglas County as of Sunday morning.
DgCoEM asks people to call 911 if they have powerlines down or caught in trees and do not attempt to deal with them yourself.
People can report other storm damages to the nonemergency dispatch lines, 785-843-0250 or 785-832-7509.
“Staff will continue to monitor for damages or other reports related to the Tornado watch,” according to DgCoEM.
According to the National Weather Service in Topeka, isolated to scattered storms could develop Sunday afternoon, and storms could produce small hail and gusty winds.
NWS had issued a tornado watch a little after 9 p.m. Saturday night to last through 5 a.m. Sunday for much of eastern Kansas, including Douglas County, and parts of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. The watch was canceled around 2 a.m. as “the threat has waned,” according to NWS.
As of just before 11 a.m. Sunday, Evergy’s online outage map indicated about 300-400 customers were without power in the Lawrence and Douglas County areas.
More than 140,000 Evergy customers lost power over the course of the storms, according to the company.
“As of 10:30 a.m. Sunday, about 71,000 customers are still without power due to about 2,000 outage events that will require repairs,” Courtney Lewis, a spokesperson for Evergy, said in a news release Sunday morning. “Weather included a downburst, which can have tornado-strength winds, that was reported to have straight-line 70 mph winds near the I-70 corridor in the Kansas City metro area and lasted nearly 10 minutes.”
A majority of the outages are due to the significant wind, Lewis said.
“Many poles need to be repaired or replaced and down lines need to be safely replaced. Please stay at least 35 feet away from downed power lines or limbs on lines,” Lewis said in the release. “Please do not try to remove tree limbs or brush from downed lines or anywhere near power lines. Please assume that any downed line is energized.”
The company is working to restore power as quickly and safely as possible, according to the release. Crews work first on main lines that are necessary to get power into neighborhoods.
“While these repairs are under way, damage assessment teams will canvas areas with outages to take observation notes so that vegetation crews can be assigned and line crews arrive at work sites with the needed equipment,” according to Evergy.
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Severe weather resources
National Weather Service local office (Topeka):
• Find the latest weather forecast info and severe weather advisories for the Lawrence area at this link.
• In the event of rapidly changing severe weather, such as tornadoes, the NWS posts frequent updates on Twitter, @NWSTopeka. You do not need a Twitter account to see tweets from NWS.
• NWS is also on Facebook, facebook.com/NWSTopeka.
• Call 785-234-2592 to hear the forecast.
Douglas County Emergency Management:
• Follow @DgCoEM on Twitter or Douglas County, KS- Emergency Management on Facebook, facebook.com/dgcoem.
• Sign up to receive emergency alerts at dgcoks.org/emalerts.
• Find lots of tips on severe weather and other emergency preparedness on DgCoEM’s website at douglascountyks.org/emergency-management.
• Report storm damage (for non-emergencies only, and after storm danger has passed) by calling the nonemergency dispatch line at 785-843-0250 or 785-832-7509.
Evergy outages:
• Check the status of power outages on the Evergy outage map, outagemap.evergy.com.
• Report a power outage at evergy.com/report-outage, or call 800-544-4857.
• For down powerlines, call 911.
City of Lawrence snow info:
• The city has snow information and a map at lawrenceks.org/snow that shows information about road conditions and snow plow locations. The city typically begins snow and ice control for residential roadways when 2 or more inches of snowfall or icing occurs.
Air quality:
• Check the current air quality index in Lawrence and elsewhere through AirNow, airnow.gov.
