Commercial Fixed Wing
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 16
Workload; Troubleshooting; Time Pressure; Situational Awareness; Human-Machine Interface; Distraction; Confusion; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Human Factors; Procedure; Weather
The shift started with weather in the ZKC XY and ZKC ZA with numerous deviations. The flow board read only XA miles in trail to ORD; and did not specify what routes were in use due to the weather. I brought this to the attention of the Supervisor and they said they would check on it. I observed a deviating stream on the KEOKK fix; and a stream over SPI going into ORD. The Supervisor came back about 5 minutes later and said that the only two streams in use were the ones I had just observed. The flow board did not change indicating we could not use VINCA. I also asked the Supervisor what the weather was going to do that night and he said it wouldn't be a problem and would either dissipate slowly or move north. Neither of these happened.After coming back from break; the weather had moved into the northern half of Sector 84. There were numerous ORD arrivals being routed through our airspace due to a flow implementation by TMU at ZAU and ZKC (a KNOX ROYKU). The aircraft were coming to us at varying altitudes between FL260 and FL350. Three Streams were converging on STL and routed STL TRTLL3. This route was not working and all of the aircraft had to be re-routed once entering our airspace to PNT TRTLL3. This could only be accomplished with the drop down in URET; and Gateway (sector XA) put a further restriction on us to have the ORD landers at or below FL270 prior to their boundary. I also tried to route an aircraft from my stream to the KEOKK stream to alleviate congestion (at the supervisor's request) and the pilot refused due to weather.  On three separate occasions I told the Supervisor that this route was not working; and not only were they increasing my work load but they were unnecessarily making the aircraft fly west to STL and then be turned back to the East for sequencing back through Gateway's airspace (ZKC XA). On all three occasions the Supervisor left and came back and said 'That's the way they want them'. I was essentially taking ZID ORD landing traffic from the east direct STL and turning them back to the northeast through ZKC XA. There was never a route established and I had to use PNT TRTLL3 on my own; the sector was becoming over saturated with ORD arrivals and eventually I had to shut off everyone to fix the mess that was around STL. I had basically 40 - 50 miles of airspace to blend three streams of ORD arrivals that were deviating and having to be descended for ZKC XA. We also had a limited amount of MDW arrivals in the mix that apparently needed to be at or below FL230. This was also not on the flow board.  *ZKC BC that was above me was also very busy with deviations and the ORD arrivals that he was having to descent through his en route traffic for the altitude restriction. He was getting his aircraft from FL350 or above and having to blend them with my deviating stream into ZKC XA. This happened towards the end of the crazy session with numerous calls and deviations. I missed the handoff to ZKC XA.The bottom line is that I missed a handoff. There were numerous factors that contributed to this event though. - Very poor coordination between ZKC TMU and the RI controllers. - Very poor supervisor involvement in what was happening at the sectors.  - Weather and an unusable routing to ORD led to increased difficulty and sector saturation.
Kansas City Center Controller reported missing a handoff due to weather; workload; traffic deviating; and having to come up with deviation routes on the fly.