Extremely high winds wreaked havoc in the area last Wednesday, Dec. 15, including causing this destruction at the diesel pumps at the Platte-Clay Fuels location along Hwy. 92 in Platte City. The awning over the diesel pumps came down during the wind gusts–clocked as high as 75 mph at places like the Kansas City Downtown Airport–and can be seen lying on the ground. Platte City police officers commented that it is fortunate the awning did not end up flying across Interstate 29, which is located down an embankment behind the Platte-Clay Fuels location. Some of the diesel pumps themselves were also heavily damaged in the incident. Some area electrical customers served by Evergy were without power for about 18 hours after Wednesday’s high winds. The same was true across many areas of the region, as Evergy officials said at the peak it had about 200,000 customers without power. It was one of, if not the largest, number of outages in company history, officials said.
Ivan Foley/Landmark photo