B. J. Collins points out the ring of white tape on a utility pole across from her home on Wenonga Lane in Leawood. The tape, more than waist-high, is the high water mark from a particularly bad year of heavy rain a few years back. “Lake Wenonga,” her neighborhood is sometimes called — a reference to the muddy runoff that has at times pooled up in the basin created by her street’s topography. On the same day, in another flood-prone area, Jane and Bill Leverich were bracing for a different kind of water problem. Their house in Leawood Estates, just north of Interstate 435, gets water, too, when the rain hits hard enough. Spring rains this year went easy on the Wenonga and Leawood Estates, but as changeable fall weather and a strong El Niño approach, residents in Leawood’s flood-prone zones may once again be casting a nervous eye toward the weather radar and checking on their standing supply of sandbags. In the coming weeks, city leaders may also consider asking voters for a special tax to raise money to replace the failing corrugated pipes.
Read more: Johnson County Post
