UPDATE AT 10:45 AM
Most Lindsborg residents have power back, according to City Administrator Tanner Foust, who reported there were still about 77 customers without power. Lindsborg saw extensive tree damage from the high wind. Faust also said the city is opening a cooling station today at the Sundstrom Conference Center at Main and Lincoln.
The McPherson County Solid Waste Authority’s Landfill between McPherson and Lindsborg has no power at this time. Residents are asked to take trash to the Transfer Station at 1431 17th Avenue east of McPherson.
EARLIER STORY
A line of very strong winds, exceeding 100 miles an hour in places, tore through central Kansas Monday night.
The highest reported wind gusts of 113 miles an hour were clocked by a spotter northwest of Gypsum and 112 miles an hour on an automated weather station at the Salina Airport These reports are still subject to verification. Wind gusts of between 80 and 90 miles an hour were common across portions of McPherson County into Harvey and Marion Counties as well as in Dickinson and Ottawa counties. There was a very sharp cut-off as to the extreme winds, which stayed below 60 miles an hour in Hutchinson for the most part. McPherson County Emergency Management reported a lot of tree damage last night in the Lindsborg and Marquette areas, with significant tree and power line damage reported across Saline county.
In Marion County trees were blocking many roads, one house had a tree fall through the roof and into a bedroom, signs were “folding” near Peabody and the roof was taken off an Agri Trails fertilizer plant in Tampa The winds also took the steeple off of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Tescott in Ottawa County where extensive tree damage was noted .
In the early stages of the storm up to golf ball sized hail was reported generally from Salina north with the wind the biggest part of the storm as it moved to the south.
Extensive flooding was also reported from the storms in an area from Ottawa County across the Abilene area and east.
As of 8:30 this morning Evergy reported more than 60 percent of customers system-wide who lost power in Monday night’s storm have it back. Just over 41 thousand customers were still without power at that time, nearly half of that in the Salina area. Evergy said power restoration will be a multi-day effort as they are brining in additional crews to assist with power restoration. A reminder, if you see a downed power line, stay at least 30 feet away and assume it’s energized. In such a case, call 911 first then contact Evergy.
DSO reported as of 9 AM they had 3,500 customers still without power, with the largest concentration of outages to the northwest and south of Salina and the Lindsborg areas. Ark Valley Electric has restored most of the power around Kanopolis lake, the only part of their service area significantly impacted by the storm. Flint Hills REC has restored most power knocked out last night, with just over 200 customers still off as 9 AM about half of the remaining outages in Morris County.
In McPherson, the Board of Public Utilities reported minimal issues aside from a number of reports of flickering lights as the winds came through, that caused by grid issues related to outages elsewhere.
Locally rainfall reports from last night varied widely. In McPherson County it varied from 1.83 inches southwest of Roxbury and 1.70 in the Marquette are, to less than a tenth of an inch south of Inman.,Officially 1.30 inches was reported in McPherson. Salina and Hillsboro both had just over two inches with much heavier amounts towards Minneapolis and Abilene, Newton about a third of an inch, and towards Hutchinson, Lyons and Sterling little if any rainfall was reported
Flood warnings remain in effect for parts of central Kansas. The Solomon River at Niles is forecast to go above the 24 feet this afternoon and crest at 29.8 feet Wednesday morning. The Smoky Hill River at Enterprise is forecast to crest at 28.3 feet early Friday morning, 2.3 feet above flood stage. Aerial flood warnings remain in effect until noon today for Dickinson and Ottawa counties.
