UPDATE: Kaplan residents should now have power.
The mayor posted just before 4 p.m. that all residents should have power again; some on the west side of the city had been without electricity since this morning.
He also thanked Lafayette and Abbeville for their help; both cities sent electrical crews to help find the problem and fix it.
"This was an unexpected and major malfunction of an electrical panel box that supplies electricity to a big portion of the city. A lot of work had to be done to re-route the electricity to different electrical panels. We are grateful and appreciative of their help and assistance," Mayor Mike Kloesel posted. "I also want to thank Felix Guidry and his crew at the KC Hall for opening up the hall so that residents would have a place to go to in order to cool off. I also want to thank the majority of our residents for being patient and for the confidence you show in what we do here every day. Thank you all and God bless."
Earlier today, we reported that some residents in Kaplan are without power.
Kloesel posted on social media about the outage, which he says is on the west side of the city.
"We have brought in crews from the cities of Abbeville and Lafayette to help us identify and isolate the problem. At this time, we believe that there has been a major malfunction on one of the main panels," Kloesel wrote. "We have a specialized electrical technician en-route from Lafayette LUS to attempt the repair. It is a serious issue and not a quick fix, unfortunately."
He acknowledged the heat.
"I know it's probably the hottest day of the year thus far and we're working as quickly, efficiently and safely as possible to make the repair. If you need special assistance, or just can't take the heat, you may want to go to a friend or family member that has electricity until the repair is made," he wrote. "I wish that I could give you a time frame as to when this issue will be resolved but unfortunately I simply do not know. With an issue like this we have to follow a process for efficiency and safety sake. I will update this as soon as I know something whether it's positive or negative."
The mayor's first post about the outages was made at about 10 a.m. His update, which is referenced above, was posted about 1 p.m. A couple hours after that, he posted that work was underway and the KC Hall had been opened for folks who needed a place to escape the heat.
