County on ice
Marion County and 55 other Kansas counties were declared state disaster areas Wednesday after a savage winter storm ripped apart trees, power lines and in some cases homes, leaving thousands of residents shivering without power in what was forecast to be subzero weather.
In Marion County, Marion and Goessel appeared to be particularly hard hit, with power out to the majority of their businesses and residences for more than 30 hours — from early afternoon Tuesday until late Wednesday evening.
Power also was out for extended periods in Peabody, which like Marion suffered massive tree damage, and in Florence and Hillsboro, which though hard-hit seemed to fare better than other towns in the county.
Power failed in most of Marion, Florence and Goessel between 1 and 3 p.m. Tuesday.
It generally remained on during the day Tuesday in Hillsboro and Peabody, but power to all towns in the county except the northern communities served by Tri-County Rural Electric was cut overnight.
In Peabody, where Westar provides direct-to-customer service, power went off to all of the town at midnight Wednesday. It was restored downtown and in a six-block area on the south edge of town by 3 a.m. Other portions of Peabody remained without power Tuesday evening.
In Marion, which bills electric customers directly for power purchased wholesale from Westar, power failed to large sections of the town, including almost all of the downtown area, Tuesday afternoon.
As city workers struggled to restore service late Tuesday and early Wednesday, power from Westar was cut at 3 a.m., plunging Marion and most of the southern two-thirds of Marion County into bitterly cold darkness.
Power finally was restored at 8 p.m. Wednesday.
In Hillsboro, which like Marion bills customers for power purchased from Westar, power failed at 3 a.m. Wednesday to all businesses and residences but was restored at 1 p.m. Power was restored later in the afternoon in most of Florence.
Although there were some brief flickers of power in Marion, it remained off there, in Goessel and in parts of Peabody at press time Wednesday night as temperatures hovered in single digits on their way to expected subzero readings.
Midday Wednesday, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius issued her disaster emergency declaration.
"Protecting the lives and safety of Kansas citizens is our top concern," Sebelius said. "This declaration will help make sure that goal is accomplished as quickly as possible."
It was unclear what the immediate effect of the declaration would be.
Counties named in the declaration, besides Marion, were Allen, Anderson, Atchison, Barber, Bourbon, Brown, Butler, Chautauqua, Chase, Clark, Clay, Coffee, Comanche, Cowley, Crawford, Dickinson, Doniphan, Douglas, Edwards, Elk, Franklin, Geary, Greenwood, Harper, Harvey, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Kingman, Kiowa, Labette, Leavenworth, Linn, Lyon, McPherson, Miami, Montgomery, Morris, Nemaha, Neosho, Osage, Pottawatomie, Pratt, Reno, Rice, Riley, Sedgwick, Shawnee, Stafford, Sumner, Trego, Wabaunsee, Wilson, Woodson, and Wyandotte.
