Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Kansas Department of Transportation says the last month's back-to-back snowstorms cost the agency an estimated $6.2 million.

The department said Wednesday that about 1,200 employees logged some 80,000 hours, with almost all working 12-hour or longer shifts for several consecutive days. The traveler information phone line got nearly 74,000 calls while the KDOT website had some 9 million page views.

Transportation Secretary Mike King says crews plowed through white-outs, helped motorists get cars out of the snow, changed tires and checked on the welfare of stranded travelers. He says crews also got a patient to medical treatment hundreds of miles away in a life-saving relay of plows amid blizzard conditions.

All told, KDOT pretreated and plowed some 879,000 miles of highway.