By BRENT MARTIN

St. Joseph Post

Widespread flooding knocked power out for hundreds, if not thousands, of Kansas City Power and Light customers in northwest Missouri.

Now, the concern shifts to safely restoring electricity.

Royal Turner with KCP&L cautions residents to be careful after the water recedes and they return home.

“I know people are going to be wanting to get in their homes and do things and clean up,” Turner says. “Just be patient, because we want to do things that are not only safe for our employees, when we do that, but is safe for the residents. We want to make sure that their home is safe before we reconnect.”

Turner says KCP&L is anxious to return to flooded areas once the water recedes and see how much damage flooding did to the utility’s infrastructure.

KCP&L had to cut off power as floodwaters claimed more and more ground last week. The cities of Craig and Watson lost power as flooding spread. Each area will be evaluated before power is restored, according to Turner.

Click here for the latest on KCP&L power outages.

To report emergencies or outages, call 1-888-LIGHT-KC (544-4852)