After Friday’s storm, Overland Park residents on either side of 86th Street between Nall and Woodson found themselves in two very different situations.
Homes on the south side of the street had maintained power during the storm, but their neighbors on the north side of the street were in the dark.
All the homes on the block are Evergy customers, but the two sides of the street run off different parts of the local power grid.
The neighborhood, in fact, has been through this many times over the decades and has developed a solution: one side will give the other side juice with extension cords.
It began with memorable ice storm of 2002
Amy Phillips recalled the giant snow and ice storm in January 2002, which created a situation that mirrored Friday’s power loss in which the north side of the street ended up going about three days without power.
“We figured out that everyone on my side of the street could run extension cords to the people directly across from us,” Phillips said. “We’ve been doing it ever since.”
Phillips said her long, heavy duty extension cords are a staple for most everyone in the neighborhood, and seem to be brought out every year or two, generally in the winter when a storm hits.
The primary goal is to keep refrigerators and deep freezers from failing, so that neighbors don’t lose tons of food.
This past weekend, Phillips was running power to her neighbors, Courtney and Kyle Pierson, until the power was restored Monday at around 6 p.m.
Other neighbors took immediate action with chainsaws, which, like the extension cords, are in abundant supply around the neighborhood.
“I saw four neighbors out with their chainsaws,” Phillips said. “They were out in the rain on Friday cutting up trees before (and after) they came down.”
Outages are a time when neighbors connect
One of those trees that did come down belonged to Jennifer Blattman’s property, just a few houses down from Phillips.
Blattman’s front yard tree went crashing into her neighbor’s roof, while an oak tree in her back yard fell and knocked out the power for her and her neighbors on the north side of 86th Street.
“Everything is above ground in the neighborhood, so this happens,” Blattman said. “Everyone in the neighborhood helps. People have been connecting with one another for over 20 years.”
The power came back on Monday evening
Blattman was getting power from a neighbor across the street, Carol Sweeney, until her father-in-law arrived with a generator.
Monday afternoon, a crew arrived and went to work to fix the damage to the power lines and transformer in her backyard.
Her power, and her high-speed Internet connection, was restored by Monday evening, along with her neighbor’s on the north side of the street.
With the power back for everyone on 86th Street, the orange extension cords were collected and put away until the next storm comes along.
Phillips hopes that won’t be until some time deep into the winter, next year.
“When it’s snowing and you see all the orange lines in the street, it looks really nice,” Phillips said.
Ben McCarthy is a contributor to the Post and other publications in the Kansas City area. He can be reached at ben.c.mccarthy@gmail.com with questions, comments and story suggestions.
