After living in Prairie Village for nearly two decades, resident Mic Johnson needed to make a large investment this year: A $14,000 whole-home generator.
That’s because Johnson, like some other residents in Prairie Village and Merriam, keeps experiencing more frequent and increasingly longer power outages at home.
The longest power outage at Johnson’s home in the past year clocked in at 39 hours. His isn’t even the longest outage: others told the Post they’ve lost power for half a week.
Evergy, the power utility company that serves all of Johnson County, stopped short of confirming whether the area has experienced more power outages. However, an Evergy representative attributed persistent power outages to an increase in severe weather events.
An Evergy representative told the Post that the region has seen major storms impacting its service area increase 129% from 2023 to 2024.
The Kansas Corporation Commission, the body that regulates utility companies like Evergy in Kansas, did not respond to the Post’s request for comment for this story.
Residents report repeated, long power outages
Johnson, who lives just west of the Shops of Prairie Village, says he has lost power at least six times in the past 15 months, a noticeable increase from previous years.
Johnson — whose power lines are buried — recalls losing power three times within a six-week period earlier this year: First for 12 hours, a second time for 39 hours and the third time for another 12 hours.
For each of those three power outages, Johnson said the Evergy outage map showed his home was in the last 20% of customers to get their power back on in the Kansas service area.
After coming to the conclusion that nothing was going to change, Johnson ultimately decided to purchase the home generator earlier this year.
“My wife and I basically decided if we’re going to be here a few more years, we can’t live with this anxiety every time a storm rolls through,” Johnson said. “We purchased peace of mind.”
Evan Peters, another Prairie Village resident who lives off 67th and Fontana streets, said his side of the street has historically not had power issues. From 2018 to 2023, he even ran extension cords across the street to help supply his neighbors with power during outages, he said.
That was until this spring, when his entire street lost power three separate times.
Peters said during one of those three instances, a storm caused an outage that lasted for four days straight. The other two outages were a day or two apiece, he said. Peters has a portable generator on hand to rotate powering his refrigerator and water heater during long power outages.
Peters said the builder of his house warned him to invest in a generator and a battery back-up for the sump pump because of frequent outages in Prairie Village, he said.
“I thought that’s weird, surely it can’t be any more frequent than anywhere else, but that was the reputation we walked into, and it’s the reputation it’s lived up to at this point, too,” Peters said.
Merriam residents report similar experiences
Several residents off 67th Street and Mastin Drive in Merriam’s West Vernon Place neighborhood — a community of about 88 homes — brought their power outage concerns to the city council over the past month.
Chris Carnaghi, a West Vernon Place resident, told the Post that in her 24 years in Merriam, power outages have never been this bad. Carnaghi said she’s shocked the power stayed on despite strong winds on Nov. 19, because in the past two years, it seems a strong gust is all it takes.
The power lines are above ground in West Vernon Place — a point residents have brought up at Merriam city council meetings.
In 2023 and 2024, Carnaghi estimates that she’s lost power at least two to four times each year. Each of those power outages lasted for at least one full day, she said.
“It’s just becoming a lot more frequent the last two years,” Carnaghi said. “That’s not right. Everybody experiences power outages, right? But it’s maybe once a year, when the weather is really bad. This has just gotten ridiculous.”
Carnaghi said she has yet to hear a specific reason from Evergy as to why she and her neighbors are experiencing more power outages than ever before.
Still, Carnaghi said she suspects a fairly unmaintained utility easement that runs right behind her backyard and along the city of Shawnee border is a contributing factor.
Evergy attributes outages to severe weather, vegetation
Last month, the Prairie Village City Council got a full breakdown from Evergy representatives of some of the most widespread power outages in the past year.
Evergy told the city council that the primary causes for the power outages include storms tearing up the city’s mature tree canopy and equipment failure.
In Prairie Village, power outages on June 11 and Aug. 31 were due to equipment failure, representatives shared. (Watch Evergy’s full conversation with the city council on Oct. 7 online here, starting at 24:03.)
Courtney Lewis, Evergy’s senior communications manager, told the Post on Friday that more frequent power outages in northeast Johnson County are caused by a combination of severe weather conditions and vegetation.
Lewis said the number of major storms impacting Evergy’s service area increased by 129% from 2023 to 2024, including at least a dozen storms with winds stronger than 50 mph. There were several storms that “sustained winds stronger than 60” mph, she said.
“We all saw the news showing images of large trees fully uprooted blocking streets and in some cases landing on homes,” Lewis said.
Lewis said Evergy’s vegetation teams thoroughly monitor and trim trees and limbs year-round, but “there will be outages” with severe storms.
The Kansas City, Missouri-based electricity company “defines frequent outages as 6 outages at a home or business within a 12-month period at that same address,” Lewis said. Evergy proactively starts “a more extensive review” for addresses that fit this frequent outage definition, she said.
“Given the resiliency efforts in northeast Johnson County, we are generally not seeing addresses with 5 outages in a 12-month period,” Lewis said.
Additionally, Lewis said the utility company “has invested more than $100 million in equipment upgrades that serve northeast Johnson County.” That includes upgrades and rebuilds at substations, replaced poles and circuits, and increased vegetation maintenance, she said.
If a customer has a concern about power outages, then they should contact the customer care center at (888) 471-5275, Lewis said.
‘That seemed like a copout to me’
Merriam City Administrator Chris Engel told the Post in an emailed statement that the city is always happy to reach out” to utility companies to inform them of customer service complaints from customers.
Still, Engel said that if resident concerns are inadequately addressed, then the city encourages them to file a complaint with the Kansas Corporation Commission. The commission regulates utility companies like Evergy statewide.
Hearing back from Evergy or the Kansas Corporation Commission has been a mixed bag for some residents.
In Prairie Village, Johnson and Peters have both filed complaints with the Kansas Corporation Commission at the suggestion of city leaders.
Johnson said he never heard directly from Evergy about his power outage problems, but the commission told him that the utility company has plans to trim trees in 2025.
As power outages persisted, Peters, unlike Johnson, received a response from Evergy after he filed a complaint with the commission.
“Evergy responded to me and said for the spring storm time frame, that the frequency and length of time that I was without power was an acceptable rate in light of the storms,” Peters said. “That seemed like a copout to me.”
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