Transportation officials place a top priority on getting flooded-out Northwest Missouri highways reopened by the end of the year. Work began Wednesday on a major lifeline, a stretch of US-136 that includes the bridge into Brownville, Nebraska, one of several Missouri River bridges closed by high water this year.

In Atchison County floodwaters washed away four large sections of the road, ranging from 75-feet long, to over 600-feet long.

Missouri Department of Transportation District Engineer Don Wichern described the damage for reporters during a tour of the area Wednesday.

Contractors will fill three of the four gaps with large rocks, working 24-hours a day, seven days a week for the next three weeks or so.

At that point officials hope to get a better look at their final challenge: the 600-foot-long gap nicknamed “the beast.” Wichern says much of their planning is contingent on repairs to the breach in a nearby levee (L-550).

Wichern says if the Corps of Engineers is not able to repair levee L-550 soon, they might be required to build a bridge over that last gap, but only as a last resort. He says reopening the road to traffic is their priority.