With the 19th anniversary of the Jacobs Creek flash flood disaster passing earlier this week, the Kansas Turnpike Authority highlighted its ongoing work to improve drainage up and down the highway.
Following the disaster on Aug. 29, 2003, the Turnpike Authority made several improvements. Spokesperson Rachel Bell says the drainage improvements became a focal point for the KTA in 2013 as part of the highway’s Long-Term Needs Study unveiled two years later.
Most of the improvements dealt with better drainage through significantly larger culverts and other means, but the Turnpike Authority also added systems to monitor the weather in general and water levels specifically.
Strong thunderstorms brought torrential rain to Lyon and Chase counties the night of Aug. 29, 2003, sending seven vehicles off the Kansas Turnpike just west of the Lyon-Chase county line. Six people were killed in the Jacob’s Creek flash flood, including five in a minivan and one person who had rescued several others trapped in their vehicles.
The drainage improvement process was already underway when another person died in a flash flood in southwest Lyon County in 2015.
Bell says the Turnpike Authority continues to study drainage enhancements as technology continues to improve and as the KTA goes full-bore on its project to introduce cashless tolling from terminal to terminal in 2024. The next Long-Term Needs Study results may be released by 2025.
