Thankfully, Monday’s travel conditions aren’t nearly as bad as they were late Sunday afternoon, when a burst of heavy sleet caused slushy driving conditions and led to a double-fatality crash west of Emporia.
Lyon County Sheriff Jeff Cope says things got extremely busy as heavy sleet overspread the county.
Details about the fatal crash at US Highway 50 and C are yet to be released, other than the crash apparently involved three vehicles, killed two people and sent a third person to Newman Regional Health with potentially serious injuries. Cope says US Highway 50 was completely or partly blocked for about four hours after the crash.
Besides the fatal crash, Cope says deputies responded to about 20 crashes in a two-hour stretch, with hot spots including US Highway 56 in northwest Lyon County and Interstate 35 east of Emporia.
In Emporia, travel conditions improved shortly after the sleet ended around 5-5:15 pm. Across Lyon County, there was some improvement south of Emporia, but roads north of Emporia had more widespread travel issues. County road crews worked through much of the evening, took a short break and resumed their work by 3 am.
The winter storm also prompted several area school districts to delay classes Monday and it knocked out power to better than 3,000 Evergy customers — and an untold number of 4 Rivers customers — from the Emporia Municipal Airport east past Waverly. All have been restored, although it took over 12 hours for the Waverly-area outages to come back online.
The weather will feel more like early spring Tuesday and Wednesday, with highs into the mid-50s by Wednesday afternoon. Rain could mix with snow Wednesday night into Thursday and again Thursday afternoon, with light accumulating snowfall possible Thursday night through Friday morning. We’ll keep you updated on KVOE, KVOE.com and KVOE social media.
