Storms wash out part of Route 66

The remnants of Tropical Storm Erin were hard on the ol’ Mother Road in at least one spot this week.

According to the Lebanon (Mo.) Daily Record:

A portion of Route 66, west of the Gasconde River is missing after Monday’s flooding when the culverts that normally allowed water to flow through with each were swept away by flood waters, taking the road bed along with it and leaving a huge hole where it once was.

Missouri Department of Transportation Spokesperson Angela Eden told The Daily Record Monday afternoon that engineers would look at the situation today and MoDOT hoped to have traffic moving again in the area in a matter of days.

“We had a lot of rain in a short period of time,” she said. “We’re going to have to have one of our civil engineers take a look at it before we can do any kind of repairs. Once we have our engineer take a look at it and they determine what we need to do to put it back together, we’ll get on it pretty quick.”

Eden asked that drivers be patient while repairs are being made. Meantime, the road will be completely closed.

Also, in Oklahoma, rising flood waters forced a rare, six-hour closing of Interstate 40 near El Reno. Whether this affected Route 66, I do not know. This portion of the Mother Road is quite a distance from I-40.

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