OSAWATOMIE, Kan. — Hundreds of residents in Osawatomie, Kan., are still without power after an outage Tuesday evening.
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Crews were working to load and install a new transformer delivered Friday from Garden City, Kan.
Residents gathered at First United Methodist Church for shelter, food, showers and a place to charge devices.
Between the church and the city auditorium, hundreds people have a place to stay.
Julene Williams, who has been at the shelter since Thursday, says she is happy she has that option.
“At times, you feel everybody is against everyone else, but I have noticed whenever something comes up, the town seems to pull together to meet the crisis,” said Williams.
While much of the city still sleeps, people are at the church volunteering.
Volunteer Erica Kriesel says the silver lining in all this is people helping people.
“There’s no school, so the bus drivers and bus monitors are just coming here to help,” said Kriesel. “We have people, actually teenagers and young adults, that are going to homes and just dropping off food.”
Kriesel says the church is doing well on donations right now, but she is more concerned about what is to come.
She encourages people to donate to the Oz Food Pantry so people have a place to go in the aftermath.
“Once the power is restored and people have to start cleaning out their fridges and their freezers, we’re really gonna need that resource, especially if they’ve never used it before,” said Kriesel.
Susan Bagnall, who lives just outside of Osawatamie, heard the news through Facebook and decided to come donate water bottles to the church.
“It’s just how I was raised and what I was taught to do, you know, you help others,” said Bagnall. “I just feel like if everybody pitches in, you know, everybody should be fine.”
Residents say a lot of the systems in Osawatomie, including the power plant, are dated.
Power outages like the current one are not rare.
“I think it was a series of complex events and without being totally aware of the infrastructure, it’s hard to say how much was outdated equipment, how much was an act of God, you know,” said Cate Garst.
But neighbors say people have two choices when there's a crisis - complain or see how one can step up for neighbors.
“This has been a blessing in a lot of ways, that’s how I feel personally," Garst said. "I’ve met a lot of really cool people. I’ve gotten to know people that I didn’t know before that I know now. It’s been a networking thing, in an amazing and totally off the wall way."
The city says the transformer installation process is estimated to take between 12 to 18 hours.
If everything goes well, power will be fully restored to the community Saturday afternoon.
