If your alarm clock didn’t go off this morning, blame Mother Nature.

The early morning thunderstorm that whipped through the region left many without power this morning. There were several reports of downed lines and poles throughout the area.

According to Midwest Energy, the largest area outage affected approximately 245 customers and ranged from Gorham to the western portion of Russell.

Another 200 customers were without power in an outage south of Russell.

Midwest Energy’s Mike Morley said those two outages were caused after a string of 12 large transmission lines were downed running out of Great Bend.

As of 7 a.m., Midwest Energy’s outage viewer showed 95 total outages — many single customers — and 1,774 total customers affected.

“There are a lot of small outages,” he said. “One pole to a neighborhood or a line that feeds one house or two houses that are down.”

Midwest crews began work in the heart of the storm, Morley said, with some hitting the streets as early as 3 or 4 a.m.

“That’s a tough job in the dark,” he said.

As of mid-morning Thursday, 154 customers in the Yocemento area and several of the smaller outages within Hays had been restored. Morley said blown fuses causes many of the outages.

Contract crews were called to the Great Bend area to replace the downed transmission lines, a project Morley said was expected to be completed Thursday afternoon.

Check Hays Post for additional details as they become available.