By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Major highways remain closed as transportation officials work to repair damage left in the wake of the second flood of the four-state region.
Damage cannot be assessed for some roads, because water remains over the pavement.
Area Engineer Adam Watson with the Northwest District of the Missouri Department of Transportation says MoDOT still has Interstate 29 closed to through traffic at US 71, because floodwaters remain over the interstate in southwest Iowa after flooding returned at the end of May.
Watson says the biggest flood damage occurred west of the interstate to the Missouri River.
“The water just up and staying up between I-29 and the river is just devastating, that northwest corner of the state, both economically, with the ability to get around, with the collateral damage from the repairs: rock truck after rock truck after rock truck, going to repair, whether it’s our highways, going to repair the railroad, whatever needed flood repairs,” Watson says as a guest of the KFEQ Hotline. “We understand it. It’s just a lot of damage.”
Bridges over the Missouri River, carrying traffic between northwest Missouri and southeast Nebraska, withstood the forces of Missouri River flooding, but remain closed to traffic.
Watson says flooding did ruin the approaches to the bridges, even wiping out smaller bridges over Missouri River tributaries; one that they are watching as floodwaters recede.
“(U.S.) 136, we had a bridge we were watching real closely from March and with the second event in May we might have substantial damage on that bridge,” Watson says. “We’re not sure, we haven’t been able to look. There is still too much water going over that section of 136 for us to really get a good idea of the damage, but personally I’m afraid we might have lost that bridge as well.”
Watson says emergency crews had begun making repairs from the March floods when the May floods forced them to abandon their work. He says the crews cannot return until the water goes down.
“The highways are covered with water. That’s why they’re closed,” according to Watson. “The approach bridges over the smaller tributaries, that’s where we had the damage, that’s where we had the bridges damaged. If the water goes down and we can get the roads cleaned and make the minor repairs. Even with those tributary bridges damaged, we’ll be able to get ‘work arounds’ so that they’ll be able to use the Missouri River crossings.”
U.S. 59 to Atchison, Kansas remains closed, waiting for floodwaters to recede in southern Buchanan County. Emergency repairs could get that link across the Missouri River open in a few days, rather than weeks.
Click here for the MoDOT Northwest Missouri Flooding report.