PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. — As the work to restore power across the Kansas City metro crossed the 72-hour mark since Friday afternoon’s storms, most customers from a peak of 186,000 had power back.
Approximately 5,000 customers remained without power Monday evening.
No power means no air conditioning, which is already a big health concern for many residents.
For Jack DeVault, 76, the situation is more dire. He has a lung disease that requires him to be on oxygen around the clock. No power means he’s had to go to portable tanks.
“The tanks don’t last very long, then he has to go to the next tank and the next tank,” his wife Lani explained.
Their oxygen supplier explained to them Monday that with so many people in similar situations, no more tanks can be delivered.
“We’ve got 24, maybe 28 hours of supply. I have about that much left, then I’m out of luck,” DeVault said dejectedly.
The DeVaults say they pre-registered for Evergy’s medical customer program. Then called Saturday morning.
“We were told they’d make out a ticket, and that would be turned in, and he would be moved up the list and more prioritized due to his condition, and that didn’t happen,” Lani DeVault said.
Evergy says in big storms, it has to look at the big picture. It says medical customers should see that medical customer program as more of a priority for communication before and after the storm, not necessarily restoration.
“We do note that in our file and to the extent that we can prioritize those customers we do. But there are thousands of customers on that list, and if we prioritized all of them, we wouldn’t be running a restoration, we’d be running a working just the medical service customers,” Evergy Chief Customer Officer Chuck Chaisley said.
It says that’s why it prioritizes critical infrastructure like hospitals and public safety and then restoring major lines that may bring several thousand customers at once. Now, they are getting into the work of individual blocks where poles may have snapped or a tree fell on a line.
As the DeVaults keep flipping the light switch to no avail, our hand-delivered news crews were working around the corner in his neighborhood today, some solace.
“That’s what they are doing, all day, every day. We just need our turn,” Jack said.
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In the meantime, he’s thankful for pleas from neighbors in a social media group that helped them track down a generator Monday. Evergy says all customers power should be back by Tuesday, which should be before DeVault would run out of oxygen, even if he has any issues with that generator.
Some in Evergy’s medical customer program left waiting
