LAFAYETTE COUNTY, Mo. (KCTV) – Angela Brodeur’s kids were taking a swim in the pool around 1 a.m. when they noticed huge flashes near the Odessa water tower.
“My youngest came running in the house and stated something was going on in town, like the town blew up, that it just lit up. He had no idea what was going on, he was just in total panic,” said Brodeur.
By the time Angela got outside, the city of Odessa was pitch black.
Officials from Evergy said an outage began impacting Odessa at around 1 a.m. Wednesday. They said an animal got into a substation owned by the city and made contact with equipment, damaging city-owned equipment and Evergy equipment.
A nearby substation recognized the issue and isolated from the power grid. Before it isolated, however, about a mile of Evergy transmission line caught fire.
Crews have been actively working on the lines all day.
Luckily, Angela didn’t lose power since she’s outside the city. She said she hopes it comes back soon and that she’ll never forget that moment.
“When he showed me the video that him and my other son had taken, it just reminded me of the movie Independence Day when the alien ship comes in and takes out the Empire State Building. It was like the whole town was lit up,” said Brodeur
The city has released updates throughout the day, saying crews are working extremely hard in the heat to get the power back on and that they hope to restore power this evening.
Around 7:30 p.m., the city also said they will have to “take an outage at a later time” to make permanent repairs. However, that will be communicated at that time.
Around 9 p.m., the city said: “We are slowly bringing the system on line. Some areas should be seeing power restored. It will take some time.”
Finally, at 9:27 p.m., the city said: “All circuits have been re-energized. Please call us at 816-633-5521 if you do not have power.”
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