UPDATE, 9:30 p.m. | From the City of Osawatomie's website: Officials received confirmation all necessary permits for the transport of the transformer from Garden City have been acquired.
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The transformer is on the way and it's estimated that it will take approximately 12 hours for it to reach the city.
Route complications due to the size and weight of the load caused a series of delays in shipment but have been resolved at this time. The driver will notify city workers when the transformer is two hours outside of city limits. Utility crews will raise local power lines as needed to allow the unit passage into the community. Crews do not anticipate that this work will disrupt power service.
City crews have arranged a heavy crane to be onsite first thing in the morning to assist with the transformer installation. It is still estimated that the install will take between 12-18 hours. During that time, brief outages will be necessary to safely reenergize the substation. The city will make every effort to give advanced notice of these outages.
Based on these developments, crews anticipate power being restored to the community Saturday afternoon barring unforeseen circumstances or complications.
The transformer the city is waiting on is the final piece of equipment workers need to repair the city's energy grid and restore power.
About 250 to 300 customers were without power Thursday night.
Ginny Mowat is one of the residents without power.
“We lost power Tuesday at 8:00 at night," Mowat said. ”We have not flickered at all here, we have got nothing back, but right across the street we own another house and it has never lost power at all.”
Mowat said the situation can be frustrating.
“It’s back up and their lawn display is still going up with electricity. Taunting you. Taunting, yeah very taunting.”
The city just over 4,200 residents is about 60 miles southwest of Kansas City, Missouri.
City officials thanked local and state officials for their help in requesting emergency
On Oct. 25, the city posted at 7:36 a.m. that power was restored "to a majority of affected neighborhoods through the city's generators.
However, a secondary equipment failure caused another power outage that day, according to the news release.
The original post from the city's website dated Oct. 24 stated utility crews identified the equipment that caused the extended outage.
The post states the failure happened at the power plant substation.
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