St. Louis-area residents face massive cleanup, recovery
More than 10 inches of rain over three days fuelled flooding
The Mississippi River and its tributaries retreated Saturday from historic winter levels that flooded towns, forced evacuations and killed two dozen people, as residents in the St. Louis area faced a massive cleanup and recovery effort that will likely last weeks.
The flood, fuelled by more than 10 inches of rain over a three-day period that began last weekend, is blamed for 24 deaths in Illinois and Missouri.
“The healing process, the restoration process has begun,” Chris Greenhagen, pastor of the Central Baptist Church in Eureka, Mo., one of the communities hit by flooding along the Meramec River earlier this week, said.
Water from the Mississippi, Meramec and Missouri rivers largely began receding Friday in the St. Louis area. Two major highways — Interstate 44 and Interstate 55 — reopened south of St. Louis Friday and some evacuees were allowed to return home.
Saturday, while residents took stock of the ruin, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said he has asked for a federal emergency declaration to help speed cleanup of the flood debris in the St. Louis area. If the declaration is approved, the Missouri National Guard would manage the debris cleanup program at the state level and co-ordinate with federal and local governments.
Nixon and Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner also toured flood-ravaged areas as nearrecord crest predictions of the Mississippi River and levee breaks threatened more homes.
In Missouri, Noelle Pace said she packed up electronics, some furniture and her four-year-old son’s clothing and toys and left Pacific Dec. 28, the day after she received a request to evacuate. She felt lucky to find the damage isolated to her crawl space when she returned for the first time Thursday.
“Everybody around us had catastrophic damage,” Pace said.
She said she might not be able to move back for weeks while her landlord replaces soaked insulation. “It doesn’t feel real yet,” she said. Illinois Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Patti Thompson said the state’s flooding death toll increased to nine. Fifteen have died in Missouri.
Rauner encouraged people to respect requests to evacuate.
“This is life threatening,” he told reporters at Carlyle Lake in Clinton County in southern Illinois. “It’s not just the water; it’s the temperature. Hypothermia is a big risk to people’s lives.”