Crews

People in downtown Wichita will soon notice something new - a skywalk. It will connect the future Drury Plaza Hotel - known as the Broadview- to its parking garage across Waco Street. Crews are now building the skywalk.  That means, Waco St. is closed between Douglas and First street for another week.

Westar Energy says crews from Kansas will head to some of the areas hardest hit by tornadoes. Our news partners at KFDI are in Belle Plaine where several trucks are ready to ship out. A release from the power company says it's sending 41 people, including line personnel, management, safety personnel, material handlers and fleet personnel. Westar contractors are also sending crews to help in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas.  Some of these groups also worked in St. Louis earlier in the week.

A house catches fire in Augusta. Fire crews were called to 100 block of east Broadway Sunday evening. Officials say the fire started in the garage, and spread to the back of the home. Some trees in the backyard also caught fire. Click here to see pictures from the fire Everyone inside the house made it out safely. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Fire crews put out three grass fires in Butler County Monday afternoon. The largest burned about ten acres and a burn near Douglass. No one was hurt. Crews stayed on the scene for several hours putting out hot spots. The fires come as Kansas and much of the country is dealing with record drought. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared more than half the counties natural disaster areas, including every county in Kansas.

Triple digit temperatures Sunday afternoon make conditions tough as crews fight two fires near Quinter. Units from Quinter and Trego County were on the scene as well as neighbors from the area who helped with shovels and water tanks. The fire burned a section right along I-70. The Gove County Emergency Services Director tells Eyewitness News that they have the fires knocked down, but hay bales will probably burn for a while. No structures were burned but the fire did damage a transformer and knocked out power to the town.

The sound of heavy equipment begins the demolition of a downtown Wichita landmark. Wrecking crews began tearing down the former central YMCA Monday morning. It closed two months ago after the opening of a new central Y nearby. The old building will make way for additional parking. The progress is a little bitter-sweet for long-time YMCA employees....like Patty Torres who tells us, "That's where I started at...I was over in that building for ten years, so it's sad to see my building go down.

At Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport, snow plows are used to clear the snow, but they also use giant brooms that spin on a truck where the plow would typically be. Airport officials say the brooms work because they can get closer to the pavement than a plow can, without damaging the in-ground lighting. Crews have been working around the clock to keep up with the snow. Each driver does about three hours of windshield time before getting a break. The runways and taxi-ways are, of course, the first priority.

A home in Hutchinson is a total loss after an early morning fire Tuesday.  It happened in the 200 block of E. 7th Avenue around 5:30 am. Fire officials there tell us investigators are still on the scene this morning looking for a cause. The American Red Cross was called in to help four people who live in the home.  No one was hurt.

Fire crews responded to a two-alarm fire at a north Wichita recycling plant Sunday afternoon. It started just after three o'clock in the 2900 block of North Emporia Street. Officials say a pile of scrap metal started on fire at Glickman Metal Recycling. Extra crews were called to the scene to help fight the fire. No buildings caught fire. The main objective for fire crews was to keep the fire from getting to a gasoline storage tank. Crews say nothing of value was affected.

750 people in downtown Wichita are without power this morning. Westar Energy doesn't yet know what caused the outage. They have crews out working to fix the problem and figure out what caused it. In the meantime, they are trying to re-route power to as many customers as possible.

We all know how building implosions go....a big boom followed by a collapse, right? Well, check this out from Australia. The boom was followed by....a little lean. Crews used 220-pounds of explosives trying to bring down an old silo. Maybe they needed 221-pounds. After leaning for about 40 minutes, they finally used heavy machinery to knock the thing down.

Emergency crews responded to a collision involving a train and car in Sumner County.  It happened after 2:30 near Seneca and 40th Avenue near Wellington. Authorities say a person on the scene died, but they say it was a suicide.

Investigators are looking for a cause after a fire destroyed an Arkansas City home Tuesday. Crews were called to the scene in the 10800 block of 284th Street around 4 p.m. Due to deteriorating conditions, firefighters were forced to battle the blaze from the outside.  No one was hurt.  The home is a total loss.

Fire investigators are trying to figure out what caused a house fire in W. Wichita overnight.   Firefighters were called to the home in the 600 block of N. Boyd Street, which is near Central & I-235,  just after midnight.     The back side of the home was on fire. Crews were able to make quick work of the fire.  No one was hurt.

Construction work in an east Wichita parking lot caused a gas line break, forcing officials to close off the area for a few hours. It happened at Grove's Liquor, near Kellogg and Webb around 5 p.m. Saturday. Dispatchers said crews were working in the parking lot, when they struck a pipe while digging.  No one was hurt. Officials closed traffic on eastbound Kellogg while crews repaired the ruptured gas line. Turnpike authorities also diverted traffic on I-35 at the Kellogg exit ramp due to the leak.

Wichita city crews are preparing to hit the streets as the winter storm approaches. Aaron Henning, city maintenance engineer, said he expects workers to head out sometime Saturday morning to treat Wichita roads. About 60 trucks are ready to roll. "When there's rain in the forecast, or there's a good chance of rain preceding snow, we try not to pre-treat because of the chance that it's just going to all wash away with the rain," Henning said. "We want to make the most of that material and the time that we spend to apply it. " Henning said he does not expect road conditions to be too treacherous, as long as the temperatures stay above freezing.

Authorities are looking into what caused a semi crash along I-70 Wednesday morning.  It happened in Lincoln County. The Kansas Highway Patrol says two people were in the semi when it crashed.  One of them was flown to a hospital for treatment.   The highway was closed for a short time while crews cleaned up the scene, but it is back open now.

Two people are in the hospital after a house catches fire in Hutchinson. Crews were called to the 1200 block of East 4th Avenue shortly after 5:00 Sunday evening. They found two people burned at the home. Hutchpost.com reports the men were adding gasoline to a wood burning stove in a shed near the home when the injuries happened. They were airlifted to a nearby hospital in critical condition.

A car crash leads to a large gas leak in Hays Tuesday evening. Shortly before 10:30, emergency crews were called to the 1600 block of E. 22nd St. They found a vehicle that had crashed into a large commercial gas meter. The meter serve Roosevelt elementary School. No one in the car was hurt, and they were able to get out of the car before crews arrived. Due to where the car crashed, firefighters could not control the gas leak using their standard procedures. Investigators say, since it was leaking in a large, open area, there was minimal threat to surrounding buildings.