by SARAH THOMACK
St. Joseph Post
The road closures starting in the spring due to flooding have been impacting businesses and more in places such as Atchison, Kansas.
Atchison Chamber of Commerce President Jacque Pregont says while their special events on weekends go well, they have noticed a difference in attendance because of the intermittent closures of U.S. Route 59.
“When we really notice it is just during the week when people sometimes are just out for a drive or you have people that are maybe driving cross country or from one place to another and that they would stop in or they make an actual attempt to come and see us and find out too late that a road is closed and they end up not coming because of that.”
Pregont says with any events over the summer and fall, including Haunted Season going on right now, they have been diligent in mentioning the road closures and detours to people. The highway reopened about a week or two before Lakefest, one of Atchison’s biggest events of the summer, but Pregont says their numbers were down this year.
“The heat was definitely a factor, but I also felt like the bridge was also a factor because there were people that were just unsure and they didn’t know and so they just didn’t commit to coming,” Pregont says. “So even though the road opened a week before, we felt like it definitely hampered our attendance.”
Pregont says she’s never seen Route 59 reopen and close as many times as it has this year and their community is concerned because there doesn’t seem to be a good short term plan.
“As long as they keep releasing this amount of water up north and it keeps raining and they have early snows up north, there’s not much hope that those levies are going to get to be fixed,” Pregont says. “So, it’s a real concern for us. I know we’ve visited with our senators, we’ve visited with our representatives about anything that we can figure out that can be done. We don’t have any answers yet, but it’s definitely a concern and we can definitely see a difference.”
U.S. Route 59 just reopened to one lane traffic Wednesday after being closed once again for almost a month.