Consistent rainfall stalls progress on infrastructure repairs in Lancaster county

Lancaster county engineer Pam Dingman gave Channel 8 News an update on the repairs of area roads and bridges on Tuesday.

Dingman says because of all the rain, the progress being made has been very slow.

Overall, the situation regarding Lancaster county’s infrastructure remains a big concern.

Historic flooding hit the state back in March, and the rainfall has not let up lately.

To make matters even worse, Dingman says a new type of failure began being reported last week.

“What we didn’t need was more rain, and so with last week’s rains, we started experiencing a new type of failure in the county, and that is sudden and dramatic failure of our pipe culverts,” said Dingman.

Dingman reports that six of the county’s pipe culverts failed last week due to the deep saturation of the soil.

She says some of these failures have created holes from five to as much as eleven feet deep.

The roads were closed immediately, and additional action has been taken.

“As engineers, we always have concerns when we can’t find a common reason why something failed, and that was the reason why I took the dramatic step of having all the pipes in the county inspected just to make sure the public is safe,” said Dingman.

Dingman sent out 20 teams of inspectors last week.

They covered all 1,400 miles of county roads.

Dingman says they have identified 75 pipes to monitor closely moving forward, and she encourages anyone who sees something like this to report it right away.

Another problem being experienced by county officials is the lack of gravel for road repairs.

“This winter was so extreme that the gravel pits froze over in December and we didn’t have an opportunity to get more gravel. And then in March, when there were floods, their equipment washed away,” said Dingman.

Dingman reports that 26 county bridges are still closed, and it will take some time for them to be re-opened.

She says the county used more than 20,000 tons of rock in March of this year.

In an effort to restock their inventory, even more has been ordered.

“This week we were fortunate enough to bid on rock hauling. We have secured rock down in Kansas, that we’re going to start hauling up next week to Lancaster county, and hopefully that will help us get going with some of these repairs,” said Dingman.

Dingman says in a rare move, there will be an emergency meeting tomorrow afternoon to vote on the rock hauling bid.

If approved, hauling of the 32,000 tons of rock will begin later this week.