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May floods
Heavy rains on May 5 and 6 cause flooding in Lyon County after more than five inches was received in the county.
Lyon County may not be as hard hit by flooding as other counties, but residents still dealt with problems after more than five inches of rain fell after midnight Saturday.
Rick Frevert of Lyon County Emergency Management said this morning that there is minor flooding around the county.
“Before last night’s rain, the rivers were just barely over flood stage,” Frevert said. “We are trying to get collected results of what damage has been done in different areas. Right now it seems to be minor. It’s surface flooding because of the heavy rains.”
Frevert said Lyon County isn’t as bad as Topeka, Barton and Riley counties.
“We don’t have that severity yet,” he said. “The area between Dodge City, the Missouri border and the Nebraska border received one to eight inches of rains as of yesterday afternoon.”
Dow Creek north of Emporia overflowed its banks Sunday, leading officials to close Kansas Highway 99 about three miles north of Emporia. For the morning commute, residents of north Lyon County were able to use Americus and Burlingame roads to get to Emporia. By this afternoon, sheriff’s officials said, they likely will be closed.
Also this morning, K-99 south of Emporia was still open, but at 9 a.m., a sheriff’s deputy said that floodwaters from the Cottonwood River were 2 1/2 feet from the road.
Emporia resident Frank Bailey, who lives on Linn Avenue, called this morning and said his home is flooded both in the front and back. He also has two feet of standing water in his home. Bailey said the flooding started last night and continues this morning.
“The trash can and everything has floated away,” Bailey said this morning. “We had a boat out there to get everybody out. I had to go to the neighbor’s to go stay at their house. That’s a lot of water.”
Bailey said he can’t get into his home to drain out the water until the water recedes around his home.
“The city came and said it would drain,” he said. “The city’s water isn’t draining into the gutter. It’s just sitting there. It’s something else.”
And city officials weren’t immune to problems.
Employees at the Emporia Police Department arrived at work this morning with water inside the police station. Furniture had to be moved out into the hallways to dry the carpeting and to prevent equipment damage. Employees reported that much of the police department was flooded, including the archive area. City court employees were trying to work around the clean-up and around furniture that was stacked in the hallway and in the offices. The chief of police’s office didn’t get much water and was being used as a storage area for file cabinets and furniture from other offices that were flooded.
Lyon County is in a flood warning until 1:45 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. This morning, Blake Smith of the 49 KTKA Storm Team in Topeka, said scattered showers were possible throughout the rest of the week.
• Gazette reporter Scott Rochat contributed to this report.