Transportation Impacts: When major flooding closes a vital connection
May 9, 2022
This is the first in a series of stories of how Iowa transportation projects impact the lives of our friends and neighbors, improving safety and making lives better through transportation.
In March 2019, a bomb cyclone struck several western and midwestern states, dropping intense rain and melting heavy snowpack on frozen ground. The subsequent runoff breached levees, flooded roadways, and decimated communities. One of those flooded roadways, Iowa 2 in Fremont County, severed the Iowa/Nebraska 2 corridor, which connects I-80 in Lincoln, Nebraska, to I-29 in Iowa. This unique connection is vital for commercial traffic traversing the region and area residents who live on one side of the Missouri River and work on the other. When Iowa 2 flooded and was closed, a commute for the locals that typically took 10-15 minutes suddenly turned into a 60-90- minute trip, and freight traffic was impacted at a similar level.