LINCOLN, Neb. (Dakota News Now) – Jabari Henry smacked a two-run homerun and became the franchise all-time leader in doubles as the Canaries fell to Lincoln 4-2 at Haymarket Park.

Henry’s 94th career double came in the third inning and broke a tie with Trevor Lawhorn for the most in a Canaries uniform. The Saltdogs opened the scoring with a two-run double in the fourth inning before adding a solo shot in the fifth.

The 3-0 lead held until the top of the eighth when Henry’s round-tripper brought the Canaries within a run. But Lincoln added a solo homerun in the home half and turned the Birds away scoreless in the ninth.

Henry led the offense with two hits as Sioux Falls dips to 30-19 overall. The two teams resume their series Saturday at 6:05pm.

Recap courtesy of Sioux Falls Canaries.

Copyright 2024 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Even after the holiday, the Fourth of July weekend is a busy time for travel, but going into this weekend, South Dakota may be seeing more traffic than usual.

The American Automobile Association (AAA) has followed trends to provide travel tips as the roads get even busier. Going into the week, they expected nearly 71 million Americans would be traveling and they’re on pace for close to their projections.

Travel is always forecasted very high in the middle of the summer with the Independence Day holiday and the peak of vacation and road trip season.

AAA said that this year has seen higher travel volume than ever before, with 214,201 residents, over 20% of all South Dakotans, traveling more than fifty miles to a Fourth of July destination, most of them driving.

“South Dakota saw around 180,000 people hitting the road. With fourth of July being on a Thursday, people did fourth of July celebrations last weekend. They’re continuing them into this weekend, so that’s a really long travel period,” said Public & Government Affairs Manager with AAA, Rylie Fletcher.

One factor that has an impact on the number of travelers is the prices at the pump. While the cost of a gallon of gas is steadily going up again, it’s still lower than it has been around the holiday in recent years.

The average cost of a gallon of gas in South Dakota is slightly above $3.20, more than 25 cents cheaper than a year ago.

Fletcher said that the recent jump was expected due to rising demand.

“We did see gas prices increase, but not too significantly. They might increase a little bit more just as summer demand for travel continues to increase, but it’s not likely that we’ll see the surge like we did two summers ago in 2022,” Fletcher explained.

With the influx of drivers, AAA wants drivers to be aware of their surroundings and be safe on the roads. They suggest giving yourself extra time and being patient with other drivers.

You should inspect your vehicle before a road trip and like always, never drive impaired or distracted.

“All of those things we know we should be doing every single day, make sure you practice them with extra diligence on a weekend like this upcoming weekend because there are so many other drivers on the roads. It’s important that you’re doing your part,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher also said that the busiest times to be on the road are between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. and if you want to see less traffic, try leaving earlier in the day. She also recommended avoiding nighttime driving because even though there’s less traffic, there may be more impaired drivers.

Copyright 2024 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.

BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – Flooding has been devastating in parts of the Midwest recently, impacting the Blue Earth River in southern Minnesota, leading to the closure of I-29 in parts of South Dakota and Iowa, and causing millions of dollars in damages to small towns and farms.

While rainfall for many in North Dakota has been above normal, flooding problems haven’t been widespread.

The North Dakota Department of Transportation (DOT) tries to prevent problems each year with proper planning for projects.

“Anytime there’s a project that impacts a stream crossing— so that can be a pipe, a box culvert, a bridge— we have to do the hydraulic design to ensure that the minimum opening is met. North Dakota state law has specific requirements of what design event these different types of crossings need to be built to, they are dependent on the roadway classification. So, for instance, our interstate is our highest priority, so it has a larger flood event that we design it to, to help ensure that there’s resiliency for that roadway,” said Lindsay Bossert, assistant bridge engineer at the ND DOT.

The DOT follows strict design standards, going above state law by planning for 100-year flood events, especially when bridges are involved.

“We have a lot of bridge replacement projects, those we have to design hydraulically to make sure that that opening size is large enough to accommodate these floods. So, a lot of those projects are going on right now,” said Bossert. “We’ve also done quite a bit of grade raises over the past few years. So, we have specific roadways that we see inundate, go underwater quite frequently. So, we’ve really tried to start bringing those above where we see that flood typically occur to ensure that those stay dry.”

I-94 recently flooded from heavy rain near Cleveland, west of Jamestown.

“We are now looking at the hydraulics of that, trying to figure out how high we would need to bring that road up in order to ensure that that flooding doesn’t occur again,” said Bossert.

Being able to rapidly respond to flooding situations starts with preparedness within each DOT district.

“They visit with their maintenance crews early spring, make sure they’ve got all their signs and barriers ready to go so that we can react quickly if we need to shut down a road. Once the spring melt starts occurring, we typically pay close attention to the water levels at that site. We use USGS stream gauges or cameras to kind of help us track those water levels,” said Bossert.

Safety comes first, so road closures do happen sometimes and damage inspections are required once the water recedes.

Flooding can also delay ongoing construction projects, so DOT contractors need to maintain positive drainage throughout the construction site to mitigate these problems.

Eastern North Dakota is generally the most problematic for flooding. River levels remain high there and across much of the Midwest, with a bit more rain to come before dry conditions are expected in the longer term.

Copyright 2024 KFYR. All rights reserved.