Water, water and more water.
Nearly every city block in East St. Louis experienced flooding Tuesday due to heavy rain, causing headaches for residents and drivers.
In some cases, the water was so high that people were unable to leave their homes and businesses were closed.
City Manager Robert Betts spent all day researching the impact on the city.
“The city of East St. Louis is being inundated with water right now,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “We are praying for the rain to ease. We have several intersections that are flooded.”
He said 3rd Street and Broadway were flooded under an underpass. He said drivers should find an alternative route.
Other areas experiencing flooding included these and more:
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52nd Street and Ohio Avenue
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Interstate 255 at State Street “was flooded with water.”
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Bond Avenue around Mt. Sinai Baptist Church and New York Cleaners.
“There was at least 8 to 10 inches of water in the street,” he said. “It’s above the curb line. I’m looking at 52nd and Ohio right now and the water is in people’s yards. All the crossover here is not good.”
Betts said the more he goes out into the community during the floods, he sees that “a lot of the water we’re getting is coming from the interstate highways.”
It floods the streets of East St. Louis, he said.
Betts said a video he filmed shows water “rolling straight into the low-lying landscape of Third and Broadway.”
He says he plans to contact the State Department of Transportation to see if they can “control surface water coming from the interstate.”
“I plan to ask them if they can come up with a plan to mitigate some of this flooding,” he said. “Otherwise we will be flooding every time it rains.
“Traffic has to be diverted and cars have to be rescued. It’s a mess,” Betts said.
He said he plans to ask the state to consider designating the area of 52nd Street and Ohio Avenue as an “acquisition area.”
“I know people on 52nd and Ohio are starting to give up,” he said. “…This is the same situation as a month or two ago. Water entered people’s backyards, their basements. And it’s just a repeat. It really must be exhausting for the citizens.”
Henry Cotton, a former Public Works employee for the city of East St. Louis, said he called the Public Works Department and said he was coming to help them.
“It’s something that happens and we have to do what we do. I’m retired, but I left because I love the city of East St. Louis and I care about the citizens,” he said.
Cotton cleaned up some streets he knew could drain.
“The streets were flooded. I took the shovel and cleaned the guardrails,” Cotton said. “I was at 22nd and Martin Luther King, in the 1400 block of Baugh Avenue, and I went to 16th Street south of State Street and the 1900 block of Missouri Avenue.”
Describing the water he saw, Cotton said, “The water was full in the streets.”
