‘Don’t drown, turn around’: City of Leavenworth preps for flooding
LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — Leavenworth City leaders are preparing for potential flooding of the Missouri River this weekend. As the flood warning takes effect, an emergency response plan will be implemented.
Interim Leavenworth City Manager Patrick Kitchens said monitoring the situation is a top priority because river flooding can be unpredictable.
“It looks like the river is going to get to about 23.7 feet sometime over the weekend,” Kitchens said.
“Any time when the City of Leavenworth gets over 22.3 feet, we have an emergency action plan that we implement. Starting with closing of the campground here. Water will get over the banks and interfere. So we’ll get that closed and get the people evacuated out of there.”
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The city’s brush site will be closed this weekend, and 2nd St. in Leavenworth will likely be blocked off due to the flooding.
“These things, in our experience, change rather rapidly. Sometimes, if another event takes place, we’ll have to implement some additional measures,” Kitchens said.
“But in particular, if you’re driving through the community near and around Second Street, please don’t drive through flooded waters. Don’t drown. Turn around.”
Kitchens said if additional measures are necessary, they will share that information, along with other flood updates, on the City of Leavenworth’s website.
“Most of it is determined by what happens north of us. So the heavy rains, I think the dams are being released, and those things impact us here downriver,” Kitchens explained.
“But we live in a community that’s very used to it. We have a lot of good data and a good plan, so we’ll implement that.”
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The Missouri River at Leavenworth is expected to rise above flood stage early Sunday morning. The flood warning will go into effect late Saturday night and continue through the Independence Day holiday, ending on Friday, July 5th.
“Just prep for it is all. They are pretty good about it downtown at the community center getting the sandbags and all of that,” said Leavenworth resident John Harding.
“They are prepared for it. They have handled a lot of them, so they will handle this one.”
City staffers are also able to use drones to prepare for potential floods.
“We have the ability now to do drone overflights to verify the information we’re getting from the National Weather Service,” Kitchens said.
“We know that at this level, this is what it’s going to look like, but we can also fly our drones now and verify that information and make sure that we’re as accurate as we possibly can be.”
More information can be found on the National Water Prediction Service’s website.
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