Overnight storms leave thousands without power in Kansas City area
Strong to severe thunderstorms with brilliant lightning and booming thunder swept through the Kansas City area early Monday, knocking out power to thousands and downing some trees and limbs in the metro.
Shortly after 6 a.m., Evergy reported that 7,529 customers were waking up without power. The hardest hit was Clay County, which had more than 5,400 customers without power. There were more than 1,700 customers without power in Jackson County and over 330 customers left powerless in Platte County.
On the Kansas side, about 70 customers were without power in Johnson County.
The utility said it would have delayed restoration times and estimates were unavailable due to storm activity.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Utilities reported that 258 customers were without power, while Independence Power & Light had 155 customers with outages.
The storms packed powerful winds with peak wind gusts of 82 mph reported at Kansas City Downtown Airport — Wheeler Field shortly after 1:35 a.m.
At about the same time, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for south-central Clay County and northwestern Jackson County as a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was passing over the metro.
Radar indicated that the storm was rotating. People in the path of the storm, which included Kansas City, Independence, Lee’s Summit, Blue Springs, Raytown, North Kansas City, Sugar Creek, Avondale, downtown Kansas City, Birmingham and Randolph, were urged to take cover.
There were no confirmed reports of a tornado touching down.
The storm also produced hail about 1 inch in diameter and caused flash flooding in Kansas City’s Northland.
“Areas that do not typically flood are reporting to have flooded with lots of running water,” a weather service employee reported.
Water rescues were reported on the ramp to northbound Interstate from Northeast Chouteau Trafficway and near Missouri 9 and Northwest Briarcliff Parkway.
A large tree was blocking a road near Riverside and several large branches were downed near Swift Street and East 28th Avenue in North Kansas City.
A flash flood warning remains in effect for parts of the northeastern Wyandotte County and southwestern Clay County and southeastern Platte County. As of 6 a.m., the thunderstorms have ended, but between 1.5 and 3 inches of rain fell overnight. Runoff will continue to produce flooding for the next couple of hours, the weather service said.
