By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

An afternoon power outage that lasted as long as four and a half hours in parts of Marion added to the misery of cold temperatures Sunday.

Temperatures in the upper 30s at noon, and by the time power was restored, temperatures had dropped to the lower 30s.

The first three hours of outage were caused by a failure in an Evergy (formerly Westar) transmission line southwest of Marion. A large area around the city lost power as well.

That outage was likely caused by high winds, with gusts in excess of 35 mph.

“Any time you get power lines moving that much in the wind, about anything that gets close enough will cause it to arc,” city administrator Roger Holter said. “Normally it’s trees that cause it to arc.”

Immediately after the Evergy system was back in operation, an underground circuit in Marion’s city power service failed.

The circuit, which connects several city power lines, melted, Holter said.

High groundwater was a possible culprit, he said.

A city work crew spent an hour and a half replacing that circuit before the north hill area’s power was restored.