Getting your power back on: What Evergy is and isn’t responsible for - WDAF FOX4 Kansas City

What utility company isn't responsible for when power goes out

PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. — Evergy has restored electricity to majority of the Kansas City area, but some people may not get their power fully restored without putting in their own work.

Electricians from KB Complete were near 73rd Street and Belinder early Wednesday afternoon trying to restore power to a homeowner there. Lead Electrician Mike Scahill said there’s a huge property divide between who can work on what at a person’s home.

“The utility owns the conductor that comes from the service pole to the home on a single-family dwelling, right? So that’s a primary resident,” Scahill told FOX4 Wednesday.

Scahill said Evergy’s in charge of the actual meter, too.

“The meter socket is on the homeowner’s side of the property divide and, as such, is their responsibility for maintaining,” he continued.

In electrician and utility worker talk, the load side is what needs to be serviced. In Wednesday afternoon’s case, that’s the home. The line side is in reference to the power line, maintained by the utility company.

“It literally means that they cannot maintain the load side,” Scahill said of Evergy. “We cannot maintain the line side, and so we can’t touch their stuff, and they can’t touch our stuff as it were.”

Because the socket was ripped off the home that Scahill was working on, it means Evergy won’t be paying for that fix.

That may be surprising to some homeowners.

So who foots the bill? Insurance could be an option.

“If they’re covered for wind on their policy and the tree knocks down a power line, yes,” Brier Payne Meade Insurance Agency Manager Stephen Clifford said in an interview with FOX4 Wednesday when asked whether insurance would pay for the meter box damage.

Clifford said the homeowner would be subject to a deductible.

“If you have a policy that has a $1,000 deductible, the total cost of the repairs is $5,000, the company pays four, you pay one,” he continued.

Every would not comment to FOX4 on camera Wednesday. They did send us an image though, confirming what Scahill said.

Evergy is in charge of the meter, what’s in orange in this image above. The homeowner is in charge of the box or the can around it, along with the conduit. Those are in blue.

The home where Scahill worked Wednesday had its power back on by the late afternoon. The homeowner did not want to go on camera but told FOX4 his insurance will cover the majority of his cost.