A large hole tore open just off Brookside Boulevard in Kansas City early Sunday morning, sending water streaming down 55th Street and forcing crews to rope off the area with yellow tape and orange traffic barriers. The break happened right at the 55th Street crosswalk along the Trolley Trail, just outside the Shops at Crestwood, leaving at least one nearby business dealing with flooding.
Crosswalk Splits Open as Water Pours Down 55th Street
According to KMBC, a KMBC9 viewer sent in videos showing the hole splitting open the road right where the crosswalk crosses 55th Street. The station reported that yellow tape marked off the area while orange traffic barriers kept both pedestrians and vehicles from getting any closer to the hole. KMBC9 said it confirmed that one business in the area is dealing with flooding from the hole in the street, though the outlet did not name the business or detail the extent of the damage.
The outlet noted the location sits right along the Trolley Trail and outside the Shops at Crestwood, a stretch of Brookside that sees regular foot and bike traffic. KMBC9 said it had reached out to the city for more information about the hole, though no city response, cause, or repair timeline had been reported as of Sunday morning.
A Rough Stretch for Kansas City Streets and Pipes
The Brookside hole follows a string of other street failures around Kansas City in recent days. Just three days earlier, on Nov. 12, a water main line broke and caused a sinkhole to form in the middle lane of Southwest Trafficway near 37th Street, according to The Kansas City Star. The city closed the middle and right lanes there while repairs took place, leaving only the left lane open, and crews repaired the broken line that same evening before filling it with concrete to dry overnight. The city had expected that repair to be finished by the following Saturday morning, though officials cautioned it could take longer.
Water main trouble has not been limited to one spot. The Kansas City Water Department has said the city typically sees around four to six water main breaks on an average day, according to KSHB. In one reported stretch, the city responded to 20 breaks since the preceding Friday, including at least eight in just the first half of a single Monday. One Brookside resident, Paul Travis, told the station that crews restored his water before 1 a.m. that Monday after a separate main break, even as his sidewalks, street, and driveway remained covered in ice.
Other Sinkholes Have Traced Back to Aging Infrastructure
Kansas City has grappled with other sudden roadway collapses tied to underground infrastructure. A separate sinkhole near Wyoming Street exposed a gas pipe and left a hole roughly three feet deep, with an investigation reported by FOX4 finding that a contractor had horizontally directionally drilled a gas main through a storm sewer. KC Water told the outlet that Spire said the gas pipe involved had been replaced back in 2004.
Elsewhere in the city, a steel plate at 21st and Summit Streets was sinking as the surrounding road eroded, prompting a dispute over who was responsible for the fix. A city spokesperson told Fox4 that the property owner was responsible for repairs underneath the street, and that the city had issued the owners a violation notice. In a different case, a sewage leak reported along the Trolley Trail near West 61st Terrace and Brookside Boulevard was traced by city leaders to a private sewer line tying into five nearby houses, KMBC previously reported. A separate sinkhole in a Northeast Kansas City neighborhood had also been growing for more than a year, with neighbors estimating it stretched more than six feet deep and spanned the entire width of the street, according to a report from KTVZ.
None of those earlier incidents have been confirmed as connected to Sunday's hole along Brookside Boulevard, and the cause of this latest collapse remains unverified. KMBC9 said it was still waiting to hear back from the city as of Sunday morning, and no repair timeline or closure details beyond the taped-off area had been released.
