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U. City residents hammered by another flood
(by Jenny Fisher - June 24, 2009)
When heavy rains hit the St. Louis region the morning of June 15, University City residents battled floodwaters from a swollen River Des Peres for the third time in nine months.
Homeowners stood in water up to their knees, and those who had replaced appliances damaged by flooding last September and this May faced another round of losses. Mayor Joseph Adams declared a state of emergency, and residents on Wilson Avenue were evacuated.
A few hours later that day, University City residents, including many people living in the areas hardest hit by the rain — on Wilson Avenue, Glenside Lane, Mona Drive and Groby Road — convened at the regular City Council meeting to express their concerns to the council, which is currently pursuing a buyout of 26 properties on the river side of Wilson Avenue.
“I came tonight because I am tired of being flooded,” said Pearleanda Jackson, a resident of Glenside Lane. “I was hoping maybe some way we could find a way to warn the people on Glenside Lane when the floodwater’s coming. When we sleep at night, we have to pray and hope that the water’s not going to overtake us.”
According to City Manager Julie Feier, the city has researched a warning system, which could cost as much as $1 million. University City would work with other cities upstream to create a chain of alarms so that when water hits a certain point upstream it triggers an alarm downstream. That alarm could be as simple as notification to the police or as complex and expensive as a warning system with sirens like that used for tornados, Feier said.
Though Wilson Avenue residents said they were relieved that the council voted to go ahead with the buyout two weeks ago, they expressed concern about what steps were necessary to secure the $3 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency money (with a $1 million city match), and where the city was in the process. Some questioned the city’s $1 million figure, as the city has yet to appraise the homes.
Feier said that the city’s estimate was based on county valuation data and that the city is “moving forward as quickly as possible.” The city sent a letter to residents on Wilson last week, asking homeowners to submit insurance and title information. Once the city has collected all of that information, Feier said, it will submit the grant.
FEMA said it will either approve or deny the grant two to three months after it is submitted. Then the city will notify homeowners about property appraisals, take bids on the work to be done and schedule appraisals. For homeowners, the final step is receiving offers on their houses, which Feier said could happen in less than a year. Assuming all 26 homeowners take the offer, the city plans to turn that side of Wilson into a greenway.
While Wilson residents worried about when the city would take action, and what they should do in the meantime, homeowners on nearby streets pressed for help, too.
“I understand that you’re pretty concerned about the flood on Wilson, but I think that my house should also be a priority,” said University City resident Marguerite Gomez Albarello.
Albarello, who lives on Burch Lane off Wilson, said the Metropolitan Sewer District had worked in her neighborhood, and hers was the only house they worked on. After the workers finished, it rained again and her basement flooded. The inspector from MSD told her that she would always have water in her basement because there’s a creek under the house.
“My children are 7 years old and 5 years old. You know how dangerous that is for my children?” she said. “I want to cry because I have been here less than one year. My husband is from Africa; I am from South America. We didn’t know how to buy a house in America. And now we have to live in that house with our children.”
Feier said the city focused the buyout on the 26 homes on Wilson Avenue because those were the properties that had historically flooded most frequently and to the greatest degree. According to a study presented to the city last year by the Army Corps of Engineers, the stretch of River Des Peres along Wilson Avenue from Midland to Shaftesbury contains the greatest number of structures in the river’s five-year flood plain.
“I understand this flooding. I’ve seen it for 20-plus years. And I wish I had a magic wand to fix it,” Adams said, noting that the issue is much larger than University City. “I will keep contacting the people in the federal government, in the state government. We are going to work with the Corps of Engineers, but friends and neighbors, they’re slow.”
The Corps has identified 148 homes along the River Des Peres between 82nd Street and Purdue Avenue in the five-year flood plain that it will recommend to Congress be purchased. But the Corps study is still in the draft stage, and according to project manager John Peukert, the agency’s internal review process could take about a year, and it could then be another two years after that before the federal government approves and apportions a recommended $23-million buyout.
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