Kansas City Power and Light (KCP&L) is recovering from what it’s calling one of the top 10 storms in company history dating back to 1882.

Image courtesy of Kansas City Power & Light

Heavy rain and wind Saturday night left fallen trees and downed power lines throughout the Kansas City region.  140,000 customers were without power in the storm’s aftermath before crews were able to restore more than 100,000 Sunday.   KCP&L estimates 90% of the customers who lost electricity will have it back by Monday at midnight.

Crews from Empire District in southwest Missouri and Westar Energy in Kansas are assisting in the repair process as are teams from nearby states.  KCP&L spokesperson Jeremy McNeive said the number of outages and the severity of damage have led the company to determine the storm is one of the worst in its history.

An ice storm in 2002 left one person dead and nearly 500,000 trees damaged.  It also caused power transformers to explode, leading to a number of fires.

McNeive says crews are currently trying to return electricity in older sections of the area where repairing a transformer or substation might restore power to as few as three customers.

He said deliver of electricity to most all of the Kansas City region should be complete by Tuesday with isolated outages remaining into Wednesday.  Repairs will take the longest in locations where multiple power poles or massive trees are down.

As of midday Monday. 23,000 KCP&L customers were without electricity.