TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Severe storms left thousands of Kansas residents without electricity for more than 24 hours as crews work to restore power.

Topeka resident John Braun said his neighborhood has been without power for more than a day.

“It just went out, and you know, of course, we’ve got no air conditioning, and it’s humid, you know. Three sheets on the bed so you don’t sweat through the mattress. You know, couldn’t run a fan,” Braun said.

Braun said the area from 29th to 21st streets has no power.

Gina Penzig with Evergy said crews from Kansas and Missouri are working to restore service.

“We had our local crews going to work as soon as they could safely do so to begin to restore power,” Penzig said.

Evergy had 25,000 customers without power about 36 hours ago and has restored service to 90% of those customers, Penzig said.

“We expect to have everybody back on late this evening, so about a day and a half into this storm getting everything done,” Penzig said.

Braun said residents are trying to stay positive while waiting for power to return.

“We had a great time picking up; it was fun, a lot of fun, but around 2 o’clock, everybody is worn out about 8 hours of tree cutting. Just piling and stacking and then you have three or four beers of that, and you’re tired,” Braun said.

About 1,800 customers remain without power in Shawnee County and 500 in Riley County. Evergy expects power to be restored by late tonight.

About 8,200 customers in the Salina area remain without power, and it may take until Thursday night for electricity to be restored, according to Evergy.

Evergy’s power outage can be found here.

A Kansas boy searching for fossils during a geology club field trip stumbled onto something far bigger than expected: the remains of a 15-foot-long marine reptile that swam an ancient sea 85 million years ago.

Corbin Bullard was just 11 years old when he spotted several large vertebrae protruding from rock at a quarry near his hometown of Clearwater, Kansas, during a September 2025 outing with the Sedgwick County 4-H Geology Club.

“I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that it was something big,” Bullard told FOX Local.

Over the course of three additional excavation trips, Bullard and fellow club members carefully uncovered nearly an entire tylosaurus, a massive marine reptile that ruled the seas during the Cretaceous Period.

DINOSAUR FOSSILS UNEARTHED DURING PARKING LOT CONSTRUCTION AT NATIONAL PARK

The fossil measured more than 15 feet long and included everything from the animal’s enormous skull to most of its skeleton.

LIMPING DINOSAUR’S TWISTED PATH PUZZLES PALEONTOLOGISTS, 150 MILLION YEARS LATER: ‘VERY RARE’

The ancient predator lived roughly 82 million to 87 million years ago, according to researchers who dated the specimen to the Smoky Hill Chalk formation, a fossil-rich layer of rock that stretches across parts of Kansas.

The discovery emerged from a quarry where commercial crews routinely shave away layers of rock, exposing relics hidden for millions of years. Before Bullard’s find, club members had mostly uncovered shark teeth and fish fossils.

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Now 12 and preparing to enter seventh grade, Bullard plans to display the fossil’s skull at the Sedgwick County Fair in July.

“I hope [the judges] say that it looks really nice and that we put a lot of effort into it,” he said.

Editor’s note: The video above aired in May.

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Voters in a southwest Kansas County have decided to remove their sheriff from office.

On Tuesday, Morton County residents voted 311-206 to recall Sheriff Thad Earls.

The sheriff came under heavy criticism from the Board of County Commissioners and the county attorney, who accused him of everything from mishandling evidence to falsifying employee time sheets.

In a letter posted on Facebook, the commissioners said 12 grams of methamphetamine went missing “under Mr. Earls’ watch.”

The sheriff denied any wrongdoing. He said that the officer who mishandled the meth was fired and that all county departments have incorrect time sheets, which are “revised all the time.”

Last month, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation told KSN that it was looking into the allegations.

The results of the election will be certified on Monday. Earls will leave his office the next day, under state law.