Wyandotte County curtails overnight plowing for ‘icy conditions.’ Some residents still stuck

Almost 15 years ago, a mother-daughter duo in the Rosedale area of Wyandotte County started a community Facebook page when they were stuck during an ice storm so they could have a space to talk with neighbors about road conditions and other local gossip.

Margie Lopez-Rivera said the group – now more than 7,000 members strong – has been full of similar gripes again this week as she and her daughter have been stuck at home days after another storm.

“We’ve been here since 1978. The city has never, ever skipped us like this, ever. And this is one of the worst storms we’ve had,” Lopez-Rivera said.

She’s only seen two plow trucks in her neighborhood since Saturday when one of the biggest blizzards in years hit the Kansas City area. And none have cleared her block yet.

A plow truck approached the top of Lopez-Rivera’s dead-end street but turned around, she said. Their neighbor approached the truck to guide it in their direction but said the driver told him, “Maybe next time,” she recounted.

“He left me and my neighbors stranded until the sun melts this,” Lopez-Rivera said.

Already lagging behind the pace of nearby municipalities, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, suspended overnight plowing on Monday night, just after trucks had first started getting to neighborhood streets.

“Operations were paused temporarily due to the cold and icy conditions,” said Dave Reno, a spokesperson for the Unified Government’s public works department.

Starting on Tuesday, crews are working 12-hour shifts during the day to clean neighborhood routes, Reno said. A small, separate crew will continue to work at night, focusing on the main arterial roads and connecting streets, called “Hot Routes” and Secondary Routes.”

In the first day or so after the snow stopped falling, Unified Government crews focused on clearing major thoroughfares.

By Monday afternoon, crews had moved on to connector streets and hadn’t yet started neighborhood streets. Several residents told The Star their streets hadn’t been plowed at all.

As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, a statement from the Unified Government said that more than 70% of the county’s 134 neighborhood routes have been plowed.

“Monday night conditions made plowing treacherous but, thanks to the collective effort across the Unified Government, significant progress was made today,” the release said.

Reno said the Unified Government had 64 trucks in total and a team of 57 people working to plow the 2,400 lane miles in the county. It’s a smaller team than surrounding cities, and he has 10 vacant positions he’s looking to fill.

Nearby, Overland Park has fewer lane miles to plow — about 2,000 compared to Wyandotte County’s 2,400 — but had nearly three times as many staffers responding to the winter storm, at 170.

Kansas City, Missouri, is responsible for plowing the most lane miles in the metro at 6,400 and was equipped with 400 employees and 300 trucks to tackle the blizzard.

The Riveras say they’ve heard from other residents complaining about the lack of attention their Wyandotte County roads have gotten, forcing some people to need to call out of work.

Faith Rivera was able to return to work Tuesday evening at a dispensary in downtown Kansas City, but her street was so bad, she said, that a representative from her job had to come to pick her up for her shift. She said she’ll stay with a friend on the Missouri side of the state line for the rest of the week to be able to make it to work.

The Unified Government has encouraged people to report issues by calling 311, but the Riveras said they haven’t been able to reach anyone yet.

“We just want someone to come plow us out,” Lopez-Rivera said.

This story was originally published January 7, 2025 at 6:57 PM.