Post updated at 1:16 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 1:
More than 16,000 Lawrence folks lost electricity, numerous power lines were down and trees fell across town Wednesday night as a severe thunderstorm hit the area.
Lawrence saw wind gusts of more than 70 mph, according to the National Weather Service in Topeka.
“Restoration efforts will begin as soon as it is safe to begin working outages,” Evergy said in a statement on its outage map. “As we get teams in the field, we will get a better understanding of the extent of the damage and overall restoration times.”
Don’t go near downed power lines, Evergy warns. For emergencies, call 911.
The NWS had Lawrence under a severe thunderstorm warning through 10:45 p.m. Wednesday.
NWS recommends going to the lowest floor possible and staying away from windows for the duration of severe storms.
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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.
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Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
