More than 1,200 electric customers across Osage and Franklin counties were without power early Wednesday as heavy rain and rising floodwaters moved through northeast Kansas overnight.
According to a status update from poweroutage.us cited by WIBW, 966 customers in Osage County were without electricity as of 5:22 a.m. The affected customers were across Osage County, not just Lyndon. Another 252 customers were reported without power in neighboring Franklin County, bringing the combined total across both counties to more than 1,200. WIBW's report, credited to reporter Phil Anderson,
The outages hit just as the National Weather Service extended a Flood Watch across Topeka and much of northeast Kansas because of heavy rainfall moving through the region, according to AccuWeather, with the watch covering eastern Kansas counties into October 1. The timing suggests storm activity was a likely factor behind the morning's disruptions.
Who Keeps the Lights On in Lyndon
Lyndon sits along U.S. Highway 75 in central Osage County and served as the county's seat with a population of 1,037 recorded in the 2020 Census, per Ballotpedia. Evergy is the largest electric utility in Osage County by megawatt hours sold and serves municipal hubs including Lyndon, Carbondale and Overbrook, according to FindEnergy.
Rural stretches of the same county, along with parts of Franklin County, are served by a different provider: 4 Rivers Electric Cooperative, headquartered in nearby Lebo. The member-owned cooperative serves more than 12,000 service locations across 16 eastern Kansas counties, including rural portions of Osage and Franklin counties, per its own account of its territory. The overlap of an investor-owned utility and a rural cooperative in the same storm zone means restoration timelines could vary block by block, though neither provider had published a completion estimate in the initial report.
How This Storm Compares to a Typical Outage Year
Outage Totals Across the Counties Osage County reported 966 customers without power and Franklin County reported 252. Franklin County, which borders Osage to the east, includes Ottawa, its county seat and most populous city.
The outages also follow a string of recent utility strain in the two-county area. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment rescinded a boil-water advisory for Franklin County Rural Water District No. 3 on September 1, after low chlorine residual levels were resolved. Hoodline previously reported on a related boil water advisory in Pomona earlier in September, another sign of the infrastructure pressures facing the region.
State Grid Upgrades Underway, But Timeline Unclear
The outages arrive as the Kansas Corporation Commission has made $6.48 million in federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law grant funding available this year to electric grid operators aiming to bolster resilience against extreme weather, with subgrants targeting rural and underserved power providers. Evergy is an investor-owned utility in Kansas.
Power had been restored to all affected customers in Osage and Franklin counties by 7:08 a.m. Wednesday.
