Kansas town without power, water for days as temperatures drop
By Heidi Schmidt
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OSAWATOMIE, Kansas (KCTV) — Residents living in a small Kansas town are in their fourth day without power. The city of Osawatomie says it doesn’t know when the problem will be repaired.
A piece of equipment failed at a power plant substation earlier this week. It caused the power to go out in certain areas of the town.
Crews were able to restore the power to much of the area, but say a second piece of equipment failed Wednesday morning. The problem impacted the generators and caused another widespread outage.
The city’s water treatment plant was also impacted by the second outage. A generator was hauled to the city to power the plant and supply water, but it could not supply power to the city’s electrical grid.
First responders set up a shelter at the First United Methodist Church for the 300 households who remain in the dark. City leaders are asking residents who have power to conserve it until a new transformer arrives and crews are able to install it and restore electricity to everyone.
Osawatomie leaders say they are buying a new transformer from Garden City, Kansas, and that the 70,000 pound piece of equipment arrived in the town Friday.
Crews started to install the new transformer at the substation. As of Friday afternoon the city has not provided an update on when it expects to have power restored.
The city previously said crews hoped to have the power back on to everyone by sometime Saturday afternoon.
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