Tens of thousands still without electricity

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- More than 90,000 Kansas City-area customers were still without power from last week's ice storm, power company officials said.

"We continue to lower the numbers, but it's a long, slow process," said George Minter, a spokesman for the Missouri Public Service Co., which had almost 17,400 customers without power Sunday morning.

A spokesman for Kansas City Power & Light Co., the hardest-hit utility, said service was about 75 percent restored.

"That translates to about 73,000 still without power," Tom Robinson said.

Robinson said he was confident that power would be restored to most schools on the Missouri side of the state line by Monday.

"We're working hard to get those facilities back," he said.

Robinson said KCP&L crews focused on priorities such as traffic signals, nursing homes, schools, water and sewage treatment plants, and police and fire stations.

The utility deployed about 325 out-of-state crews to the seven areas that had the most affected customers.

Robinson said that most schools on the Kansas side of the metropolitan area would likely have power restored in plenty of time for classes on Monday. That includes the Blue Valley, Shawnee Mission and Olathe districts, he said.

Six teams of investigators from local, state and federal agencies began compiling an estimate of how much money will be needed for local governments to clean up and recover from the storm.

"Just the extent of debris and amount of it on the ground is staggering," said Charles May of Missouri's Emergency Management Agency. May was among the team that inspected Kansas City, North, assessing storm debris.

Kansas City officials have estimated the total bill for recovery at $20 million, not including the costs in other cities. Officials in Independence estimated Saturday that brush cleanup alone would cost $5 million to $7.5 million.