Water from floods damages gravel roads

    The Iowa River is still flooding after last week?s rain and high temperatures that melted nearly all of the snow in the area. The National Weather Service issued a flood warning for the river last Tuesday and reported Monday morning that the river was still a foot above its flood stage of 15 feet. The weather service is predicting that the river will fall below its flood stage Tuesday.

    Assistant County Engineer Jacob Thorius said the excess water damaged a few roads southeast of Riverside. He said secondary road workers had to fix a couple of holes that had formed on those gravel roads over the weekend. He remarked that there were problems with some of the culverts underneath the roads that allow water to flow from one side to the other.

    Thorius said some of the old culverts use pipes to transport the water and the pipes have corroded because of rust. Instead of flowing through the pipe, the water seeps through the holes in the pipe and is soaked up by the surrounding dirt. Thorius said the road on the surface eventually collapses into this soft spot caused by the water, and that?s when county employees have to fill the hole with more gravel.

    The county closed 130th Street south of Kalona last week because there was standing water on it. The road was kept closed to through traffic while the rains fell and the rivers rose, but was finally opened over the weekend. 

    There was a flood warning issued last week for the English River, which comes to within a mile of Kalona on the south side. The English River had risen more than 2 feet above its flood stage of 14 feet by Wednesday morning of last week, which was when the county decided to close 130th Street.

    Thorius said that the English River empties into the Iowa River east of Riverside and that ?it takes a while to drain out.? He said that all gravel roads in the county are now safe to travel. He also stated that heavy traffic is hard on gravel roads attempting to recover from snow and ice cover, so he advised that people only drive on gravel if necessary.

    ?If you don?t have a reason to be on gravel, then taking a different route will reduce the traffic on gravel and help the roads heal from the winter,? said Thorius.