With a year passing since freezing temperatures caused an energy crisis in Kansas, KSNT’s Capitol Bureau revisited towns and school districts hit hard by bills that came in the aftermath. The cold snap in February 2021 hit the majority of the state, with as many as 100,000 Evergy customers going without power during rolling blackouts at peak. Kansas saw two days of controlled outages because electricity providers were facing generating issues from the cold, and the effects trickled out. Schools closed, homes had to plan for staying warm with no power, and cities like Manhattan lost critical infrastructure like traffic lights. Alongside electrical grid strain, the state saw extraordinary demand for natural gas. During the cold crisis, the Kansas Corporation Commission told state gas companies to do everything they could to keep supplying the utility to customers, defer the charges, and then develop a plan to allow customers to pay the unusually high costs over time.
Source: KSN-TV
