Severe thunderstorms moved through south central Kansas Wednesday evening with winds up to 74 miles an hour, causing downed power lines and tree damage. Heavy rains created flash flooding across the Wichita area.
The storms began moving across the area after 6 p.m, with severe thunderstorm warnings issued for Reno, Harvey, Sedgwick, Butler, Sumner and Cowley counties. There was a report of 70 mph winds in Goddard, and then a wind gust of 74 mph was reported at Eisenhower National Airport.
Heavy rains caused flooding on a number of streets and emergency crews were called to reports of submerged vehicles across Wichita. There were reports of 6 inches of water on some streets in Wichita’s Old Town district, and 12 inches of water was reported over West Street north of Central.
Westar Energy was reporting around 1,600 customers without power near Goddard, with other outages scattered across Wichita.
Showers and storms were expected to continue into Thursday, but no severe weather was expected.
A flash flood warning was issued for Wichita into the late night hours, but a flash flood watch remained in effect into Thursday morning.
