Wind blamed for 3-hour power outage at Peabody

For almost three hours late Thursday afternoon, the entire city of Peabody lost electrical power because of high winds.

According to Leonard Allen, a spokesman with Westar Energy in Topeka, weather caused the outage at about 4:15 p.m.

?We had 561 customers without power for 168 minutes and the cause was listed as wind-related,? he said. ?Usually this means some trees were probably blown into the lines with a fuse or something needing to be replaced.?

Randy Frank, Marion County Emergency Management director, was at the scene to assist where needed.

?Life safety is always first,? he said. ?We identified where the big congregations of people were at that time, which included the long-term care facilities and schools.?

Officials at the Peabody School District, he said, had the situation under control and were dismissing everyone from the middle school basketball game, which was in progress against Little River.

?City and county officials joined together in a unified command and activated portions of the emergency operations center in Peabody to evaluate the issue,? Frank said.

One of the concerns was the availability of oxygen bottles for residents in long-term care facilities and private homes.

?Several agencies were involved in identifying available filled oxygen bottles if the facilities current supply were to be depleted,? Frank said.

Diedre Serene, administrator with Marion County Public Health, worked on identifying commercial agencies that could deliver oxygen tanks.

Marion County EMS director Steve Smith pulled together the number of available air tanks in his facility that could be used, Frank added.

?Both St. Luke Hospital and Hillsboro Community Hospital identified additional possible containers for use from their facilities,? he said.

Both Union Pacific and Santa Fe railroad officials were also notified of the situation, Frank said.

Railroad officials decided to stop trains three miles from town until the crossing lights were operating again, Frank said.

?That way there would be no issue with trains and people (crossing the tracks),? he said.

Peabody businesses also shut down because cash registers couldn?t be operated, Frank said.

Peabody Police Chief Bruce Burke said he and his officer patrolled the streets of Peabody during the outage.

?They also con?tacted residents who were homebound on oxygen to ensure they had sufficient amounts until the power was restored,? Frank said.

A command center was set up at the Peabody Care Center to track equipment, personnel or what else might be needed.

The outage was caused by extreme winds, he said, with the National Weather Service issuing a ?red flag warning.?

Marion County Sheriff Robert Craft said a team of deputies was standing by to bring a 40-kilowatt generator for use if the power outage continued into the night.

?Our office was aware of the situation, we were monitoring and we were talking with Randy (Frank) and Bruce (Burke),? he said.

?They seemed to have everything under control, but we made sure the generator was ready to go if necessary.?

Nobody was injured in the event, Frank said.

Westar?s original estimate of when power could be restored to the area was 8:30 p.m.

However, electricity throughout the city was back on at about 7 p.m., Allen said.

Frank recommended that whenever someone has an emergency situation, they should call 911.

?Please remember that 911 is truly for emergencies,? he said. ?If it is not an emergency, call the police or sheriff?s general office number.

?Most of the time when an emergency occurs, we are aware of it (like in Thursday?s outage),? he said.

For more information about emergency management, call Frank at 620-382-2144 or stop by his office at 202 S. Fourth St., Marion.

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