Originally published June 17, 2009 at 10:24 a.m., updated June 17, 2009 at 2:31 p.m.
A St. Joseph Police officer directs traffic at a busy intersection, Wednesday, as traffic signals and almost 50,000 KCP&L customers were in the dark.with no electricity.
Power appeared to be restored to much of St. Joseph by noon Wednesday after a regional outage knocked out electricity for around two hours.
The outage, which Kansas City Power and Light attributed to a tree that fell during regular maintenance, disrupted traffic signals across St. Joseph and sent workers outside as offices and buildings were left without electricity and air conditioning on one of the hottest days of the year.
The utility's Web site showed that outages remained at about 1 p.m. in parts of Kansas City as well as Atchison County near Fairfax and Grant City in Worth County.
Up to 48,000 customers were without power in St. Joseph. Regionwide, the outage affected 68,000, including St. Joseph.
The outage, which occurred at around 10 a.m., originally hit areas as widespread as St. Joseph, Savannah, Stewartsville and Gower.
In St. Joseph, areas without power included Missouri Western State University on the east side of town and the Buchanan County Courthouse on the city's west side.
Heartland Health was without power for a little less than an hour Wednesday morning, from 10:06 to 10:55 a.m., said marketing and communication coordinator Marcy George. But the medical center and clinics were never without backup power, as they switched immediately to generators.
Heartland also took action by enacting its hospital incident command system, in which representatives from each department meet to ensure all departments are able to communicate with one another.
Firefighters were dispatched to the Downtown Townsend and Wall apartment building to rescue at least one person who may have been trapped in an elevator. In addition, stoplights and streetlights stopped working. There were no reports of injuries.
An official with Kansas City Power and Light said the outage occurred when crews were doing routine maintenance and a tree fell on a transmission line in the St. Joseph area. The company did not say how many customers were without power.
The outage caused problems throughout the city, even disrupting a funeral. At the Buchanan County Courthouse, which lost power, the lights went out when Betty and John Anderson were meeting with an attorney. "Fortunately, our conference room was still cool," she said.
Police were out at major intersections directing traffic.
Altec Industries told St. Joe Now that its employees were sent home because of the outage. About 450 hourly workers at the manufacturing facility were affected.
Power was restored at City Hall at 10:55 a.m. Other parts of Downtown had power restored at 11:25 a.m.
Share Your Thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. We do not review every post or respond to every removal suggestion. Comments that threaten someone or degrade them on the basis of gender, race, class, national origin, religion or disability will be removed. Comments containing abusive, vulgar or sexually-oriented language will be removed. Comments that spread rumors or lies will be removed. Please discuss only what has been factually proven. Comments posted in all caps will be removed. Stay on topic! Brief quotes are okay as long as the source is given. Blatant cutting and pasting is not acceptable. Comments must be kept under 250 words or less. Stjoenews.net moderators also reserve the right to remove comments for any reason they deem worthy. Click here for our full user agreement.
iamheartland says...
Can you add links to helpful sites that will give us more info?
June 17, 2009 at 10:45 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
whitve says...
Lights are on at Beck and Village Drive
June 17, 2009 at 11 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
fdgross3 says...
Lights are now back on in south end
June 17, 2009 at 11:14 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iamheartland says...
yeah, 105.5 is doing a great job...
June 17, 2009 at 11:16 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
leatherbustiere says...
Power was restored to Messanie and 28th at 11am.
June 17, 2009 at 11:17 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Mana82 says...
Power is restored to South 39th Street
June 17, 2009 at 11:20 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Sidamo says...
www.kcpl.com has an outage map, but no info.
June 17, 2009 at 11:23 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
shockedandamazed says...
go to kcp&l web site to see the full outage area
June 17, 2009 at 11:24 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
oreginal58 says...
Don't mention anywhere else that you might be able to get info during an emergency!!! This website will remove it!!!!
June 17, 2009 at 11:39 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Mookie625 says...
power is back on at St Joe Ave and Maxwell.
June 17, 2009 at 12:06 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
steelesta says...
I'm working on a country song about the outage. Where were you when the lights went out in Agency?
June 17, 2009 at 12:09 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
BCotter says...
Will we see a rush of newborns 9 months from now?
June 17, 2009 at 12:13 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
akm says...
all because of a tree... I was told a sub station on woodbine blew up..?
June 17, 2009 at 1:27 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
goobentrot says...
All the more reason to look into an emergency generator system
June 17, 2009 at 1:30 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
tigersfan says...
Power appeared to be restored to much of St. Joseph by noon Thursday after a regional outage knocked out electricity for around two hours.
umm what?? I thought today was Wednesday.
June 17, 2009 at 1:38 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
tigersfan says...
Power appeared to be restored to much of St. Joseph by noon Thursday after a regional outage knocked out electricity for around two hours.
umm what?? I thought today is Wednesday.
June 17, 2009 at 1:38 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
tigersfan says...
that's talent by the way....
June 17, 2009 at 1:39 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
rickygipson (Ricky Gipson) says...
story has been corrected...the power outage DID NOT push us into the future
thanks
- your friendly neighborhood administrator
June 17, 2009 at 1:42 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iamheartland says...
Hey, Ricky, I don't think the return of power created the 1.21 Gigawatts needed to power the Delorean. Meet me at the clock tower once these storms move into the area tonight.
thanks
- Marty McFly
June 17, 2009 at 2:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
rickygipson (Ricky Gipson) says...
you promise me a hover board, and i'll be there
- your friendly neighborhood administrator
June 17, 2009 at 2:35 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
AtHomeInJoeTown says...
Watch out for the manure cart ;)
June 17, 2009 at 2:39 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Biff says...
I believe they were referred to as "Hoover Boards" in the movie...
June 17, 2009 at 4:01 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Azure says...
lights on N.36th street came back on about 30-40mins after they went off.
I happened to be in bed when it happened.
so I was slightly freaking out it was just me and my electric hadn't been paid.
since I've been sick with a stomach bug, I couldn't go
next door to see if they had power...
and my lovely cellphone decided to have no bars right then LOL
June 17, 2009 at 5:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
bs64507 says...
Do ya'll really think that a tree falling on a line caused that wide of a power outage? What aren't they telling us?
June 17, 2009 at 6:19 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Ebenezer says...
Good story, to the point about the power shortage.
I guess my question is...... why did the telephone and internet outage on Monday across much of Northwest Missouri not get even a mention on this site or in the print edition?
I also checked other news sites, the Maryville Daily Forum, KMA News out of Shenandoah Iowa....... no mention.
There was no long distance or intranet service from about 7:30 am until 4:15 pm. 911 service in Nodaway County was out also for that time period.
If it was in the paper, I missed it and I apologize.
What happened? Someone or something cut a major fiber optic line and no mention. Something smells fishy.
June 17, 2009 at 7:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
kcgal4 says...
Yes, a tree can cause that much of an outage if it hits a 345kv line feeding north.
June 17, 2009 at 8:04 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )