ELLINWOOD- Tuesday afternoon, Ellinwood city workers and representatives from Lakin Township made steady progress building up the Park Ave. road bed just north of Woodhaven Care Center, leading to the Ellinwood Municipal Airport at the western edge of the city. The work is part of flood control efforts the city has undertaken to prevent flooding like that witnessed following a 2014 storm that dumped about nine inches of rain in just a few hours.
At the November city council meeting, representatives from Lakin Township offered to assist the city further by helping to build up the road bed. With the advantage of clear skies and record high temperatures, several dump trucks were employed to bring fill dirt from the flood control excavation on the east side of the city, where additional workers graded and compacted the soil at the low spot where in recent years washouts have occurred when greater than five inch rains have been experienced.
“The township really wanted to get this taken care of as soon as possible,” said Ellinwood Mayor Irlan Fullbright. The road is a frequently travelled access for many who live north and west of the city.
That wasn’t the only city project that benefitted from the unseasonably high temperatures Tuesday. Cement was poured for the much anticipated Ellinwood Splash Pad located adjacent to the Ellinwood City Pool. Fullbright said he had assumed months ago pouring the pad may have to wait until spring, but the good weather has allowed the work to be done much earlier. Ellinwood’s Rotary Club has raised money to build the pad, and those efforts are nearly complete. Additional donations are being sought to add a few more water features to the pad, but it is set to open in the late spring of 2017.