KC Scout employees receive Noteworthy Award for I-70 fire response

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Crashes, flat tires, fires, police activity, and more. There isn't much that the Traffic Management Center isn't involved in when it comes to roadway incidents. An example of this is the bridge fire at 18th Street and Interstate 70 that occurred earlier this year.

Recently, Traffic Systems Supervisor Kelly Alvarez received a Noteworthy Award from MoDOT senior management regarding her efforts during this event. The fire damaged the bridge and closed the middle lane of I-70 during the repair process. 


According to Alvarez, this particular incident was challenging and required a coordinated approach to handle and help resolve. Her role involved coordinating the team in the Traffic Management Center along with coordinating response requests from local and statewide leadership.

"From the initial call to the eventual work zone put in place, there were many tasks that KC Scout operations had to handle including dispatching first responders (including MoDOT Emergency Response), notifying MoDOT maintenance, assisting in mitigating traffc on I-70, and continuously communicating with the public through various KC Scout tools," said Alvarez.

Alvarez said that one of the biggest challenges for the KC Scout team was handling the unknowns of the event.

"We didn't know how bad the damage to the bridge was or how long any sort of closure would need to be in place. As more details emerged, we had to change our messaging and response to the event and mitigate direction from both local leadership and MoDOT's Central Office," she said.

Despite the hectic situation, Alvarez said she's proud of her team's flexibility and adaptation with the response.

"While the bridge fire was very devastating due to the loss of life, it was also a great instance of MoDOT internal collaboration. To have all of these departments within our agency work so hard to respond was very unique," she said.

Alvarez credits all of the teams who worked to respond and clear this incident including KC Bridge, Central Office Bridge, Maintenance, KC Scout, Construction, Safety, Emergency Response, and Communications.

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