By LESLIE EIKLEBERRY
Salina Post
Last night's storms brought with them multiple power outages within the Salina city limits and in the immediate surrounding area.
According to Evergy's Gina Penzig, slightly more than 4,000 customers in Salina were without power at the height of the outages.
Evergy began receiving outage reports at approximately 7 p.m. Wednesday and completed power restoration by approximately 1 p.m. today, Penzig said.
High winds that caused multiple broken power poles, coupled with lightning strikes to Evergy equipment, were to blame for the outages, she said. The winds, lightning, and heavy rains also challenged Evergy's ability to immediately respond to the outages, however the company brought in crews from other areas to help local crews with the power restoration, Penzig said.
The issues with broken Evergy poles also knocked out power to some DSO Electric Cooperative customers, some for a number of hours. As of 9:50 p.m. Wednesday, 1,450 DSO customers were without power.
In a tweet shared on the cooperative's website, DSO wrote, "Evergy needs to replace six poles in the transmission line before they can energize the I-135 and Bennington substations. They are hoping to be able to back-feed Minneapolis after they replace three of the poles."
Before noon today, electricity was restored to all DSO customers, the company reported.