Utilities continued repairing downed power poles Sunday, more than a week after a storm dumped a mixture of snow, rain and ice across western Kansas.

At the peak of the storm, more than 20,000 Aquila Inc. customers and 46,300 customers of nine rural electric cooperatives lost power.

But Sunday afternoon, Aquila had only about 110 customers still without power – 90 in Ness City – and hoped to have power restored to everyone by Sunday evening, said spokesman Curt Floerchinger.

The cooperatives had reduced the number of outages to 11,262 by Friday, the latest information available from the Kansas Electric Cooperatives Inc., a statewide association.

Shana Holsteen, spokeswoman for the association, said it could be another two weeks before power is restored to all the cooperatives’ customers.

“One problem we are facing is that the lines that were coated with 3- to 4- inches of ice, as the ice breaks off, the lines will snap back up,” she said. “Sometimes that will cause more outages as the lines make contact with one another.”

The association reported that the storm toppled 10,500 of the cooperatives’ power poles. And ice damaged or destroyed 21 steel structures belonging to Sunflower Electric Power Corp., which serves six rural electric cooperatives.

Sunflower had miles of high-voltage transmission lines downed. And one of the cooperatives Sunflower serves, Lane-Scott Electric Cooperative, was working to repair a storm-damaged substation, which converts energy from high-voltage lines into energy that homes and businesses can use.

Another cooperative, Pioneer Electric Cooperative Inc., reported that it was sending out heavy equipment, such as bulldozers, with its utility trucks to ensure that the equipment could reach rural areas without getting stuck.

“When the storm hit, it rained and then they had ice and snow,” Holsteen said. “So now that the ice has melted, they are dealing with very muddy conditions. That has made it very difficult for the line crews to get to the areas with the damage.”