Oakdale Park Outage Raises Question Ahead of Smoky Hill River Festival Opening

As Evergy crews continue restoring power across Salina, attention is turning to Oakdale Park, where the Smoky Hill River Festival is scheduled to open Thursday.

The Festival is scheduled for June 11-14 in Oakdale Park, with gates set to open at 4 p.m. Thursday. The event is one of Salina’s largest annual gatherings, bringing art, music, food vendors, children’s activities, volunteers, and visitors into the park throughout the weekend.

As of Wednesday, more than 8,000 Evergy customers remained without power in Saline County following storm-related outages.

The Oakdale Park area is showing as its own separate outage on Evergy’s outage map. Information provided to Salina311 shows the outage affecting 7 customers, with the outage first reported at 9:18 p.m. on June 8. The cause is listed as unidentified, the estimated restoration is listed as “Evaluating Situation,” and the crew status is listed as assigned.

The location is significant because Oakdale Park is not primarily a residential area. It is the site of the Smoky Hill River Festival and includes park infrastructure that supports public events. That makes the outage different from many neighborhood outages, where homes and residential customers are directly affected.

Evergy’s published restoration process does not state that residential customers are automatically prioritized over nonresidential locations. Instead, Evergy says power may return in a different order than customers expect because crews address critical needs first, then work to restore the largest number of customers as quickly and safely as possible.

Evergy also says crews may need to evaluate the cause of an outage, determine what equipment or materials are needed, remove hazards, trim trees or limbs, repair damaged equipment, or rebuild portions of the electrical system after a major storm.

That means the Oakdale Park outage may depend less on whether the area is residential and more on the type of damage, available crews, needed equipment, safety issues, and how the outage fits into the broader restoration plan.

For Festival organizers, vendors, and visitors, the timing is important. The Smoky Hill River Festival is scheduled to begin Thursday evening, and power availability in and around Oakdale Park could affect final setup, vendor operations, lighting, sound, food vendors, and other event needs.

Salina311 has reached out to Salina Arts & Humanities Director Brad Anderson to ask whether the department has received any updated information about power restoration at Oakdale Park ahead of the Festival opening.

Salina311 will continue monitoring the Oakdale Park outage and broader restoration efforts as the Festival opening approaches.