The loud boom heard Tuesday night in the Junction City area was not an earthquake. 

Geary County Emergency Management Director Garry Berges investigated and confirmed the loud boom was due to work being done by Westar Energy contractors putting up high transmission lines for a  new substation in the southeast part of the county. “The one that everybody heard last night was in the area of Lyons Creek and U.S. 77.”

Berges stated an explosive technician for Westar Energy confirmed there will be more explosions today ( Tuesday ).  “Going to be in that same area around Camp Tomah Shinga on Lyons Creek. They’re also going to have a couple off of Erichsen Road. He said one of these might be a little bit louder than the ones yesterday, last night. We are aware of what’s going on now and it was just a miscommunication yesterday. That’s why we could not confirm it last night.”

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At 7:16 p.m. Monday a loud boom could be heard in Junction City.

Checks with police and emergency management officials did not reveal any damage or calls for assistance. It is unknown at this point if it was an earthquake.

Among the locations where the boom was clearly heard was the Devin Center, where the USD 475 Board of Education was in session.

The areas just north of the city and in the central part of the city were the site of earthquakes in September but no major damage was reported. Those occurred on September 6th and September 14th. The magnitude of those earthquakes was calculated at 2.7 and 2.6.

Geary County Emergency Management Director Garry Berges did report that a meeting was already scheduled Tuesday morning at his office with a representative of the Kansas Geological Survey from the University of Kansas, that works with earthquake data and has the database on earthquakes. Members of the law enforcement, emergency management and public works operations in the city and county are expected to be in attendance at that meeting.