Even a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka found Friday afternoon’s downpour in the Lawrence area “very impressive and very unusual.”

“People can expect heavy rains this time of year, but usually it’s part of severe weather,” meteorologist Darrel Smith said. “To just have the rain is very unusual.”

Smith said the storm dumped up to five inches of rain by Friday on parts of Douglas County. Officially, the National Weather Service recorded 2.01 inches of precipitation Friday at its measuring station at Lawrence Municipal Airport.

The storm managed to flood various streets, intersections and creeks throughout the county in a short amount of time. For most of Friday, northern Douglas and southern Jefferson counties were under a flash flood warning.

A flood warning remained in effect until 6 a.m. today for northern Douglas and souther Jefferson counties.

Driveway or river?

Larry Kipp went home at 3 p.m. Friday to find his driveway looked more liked a river.

He knew it would be that way. His wife, Elizabeth, called to tell him there may be some flooding. She was at their home, which is on a hill in northwest Douglas County near North 1750 Road, close to Baldwin Creek.

“We’re used to this,” he said while sitting in his sports utility vehicle. About 30 feet of water rushed in front of him. Thirty feet he needed to wait to cross, and under the water was a bridge that couldn’t even be seen.

“You just don’t know how deep it is,” Kipp said. “The currents are still running pretty fast. Land that was there this morning may have washed away by now.”

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Calls for assistance

The rain caused an influx of calls from people needing help in Lawrence.

Lawrence Police Sgt. Dan Ward said between 11:50 a.m. and 12:45 p.m., officers went on 46 motorist assists. The bulk of those calls were from motorists whose vehicles became stuck in standing water.

Ward suggested that if motorists saw standing water, they should go around it.

“And if you see a car already stranded in water, that should be a pretty good indication that you aren’t going to make it through,” he said.

Mark Bradford, deputy chief for Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical, said his crews went on about 12 motorist assists.

Bradford said 10 extra employees were called in to help the 39 scheduled workers handle the weather calls.

Ward said police also dealt with two noninjury accidents Friday afternoon during the storm, but he didn’t know if they were weather related.

Turnpike pileup

Wet roads probably caused a five-car pile-up on the Kansas Turnpike about 16 miles west of Lawrence, said Dottie Conboy, a dispatcher with the Kansas Turnpike Authority.

Few details about the accident were available even late Friday, because troopers and dispatchers had slogged through so many calls throughout the day, she said.

Four vehicles collided into one another and a semi-trailer that had jack-knifed on the eastbound side of the turnpike, just west of the Douglas County line about 5 p.m. All of them landed in the shoulder or the ditch, but emergency crews blocked lanes, backing up traffic about a mile and a half, Conboy said.

One person was sent to St. Francis Health Center and another to Stormont Vail Regional Health Center, both in Topeka. No details about their identities or conditions were available.

Turnpike officials closed the Topeka toll booth for traffic entering the turnpike at 5:27 p.m. They reopened to one lane a few minutes later, Conboy said, but it wasn’t until about an hour later that both lanes were cleared, she said.

Throughout the day, turnpike officials logged more than 15 accidents. None besides the pileup resulted in emergency transports to hospitals, officials said.

East of Lawrence, Kansas Highway Patrol troopers worked more than a dozen accidents but didn’t take anyone to the hospital.

Jefferson County roads remained open throughout the day, and no major accidents were logged, said a spokeswoman from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

In Franklin County, roads were closed over low-water bridges but no accidents were reported, said a spokeswoman from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.

In the forecast

Smith said people could thank a slow-moving weather system from western Kansas for the rain.

The rain it dumped caused the Wakarusa River south of Lawrence to rise to 19.39 feet, within four feet of its flood stage, during the height of Friday’s storms. The rise prompted the flood warning, with warnings of the river cresting four feet above flood stage. But by 6 p.m. the Wakarusa had receded to 17.82 feet. The river’s normal level is about 7.4 feet, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The storm should have cleared up by early this morning, Smith said.

Today should be dry with a high of 86 degrees. Independence Day also will have highs in the 80s, but there will be a 20 percent chance of rain by Sunday afternoon. That will increase to a 40 percent chance by Sunday night.

“There may be some problems for the fireworks shows,” Smith said.

Staff writer Jennifer Byrd contributed to this report.