(St. Louis Public Radio) – More major roads are closing, due to flooding in south and west St. Louis County this week. A spokesman for the Missouri Department of Transportation said MoDOT would shut down Interstate 55, Telegraph Road and Lemay Ferry Road at the Meramec River Tuesday night, as the waterway continues rising.
I-55 is expected to stay closed the rest of the week. That has forced the Lindbergh and Melhville school districts to cancel classes on Wednesday. The Rockwood school district will remain closed for at least another day on Wednesday, as well.
MoDOT officials also said Route 21/Tesson Ferry Road at the Meramec and Route 141 at Romaine Creek would close Tuesday afternoon.
Interstate 44 between I-270 and Highway 100 remains closed, in addition to Highway 141 at I-44 and Gravois Road at the Meramec River.
Find all of the latest road closures here.
MoDOT District Engineer Greg Horn says 2.5 inches of rain are forecast to fall between Tuesday evening and Thursday and the earliest that some roads could reopen is by Friday morning rush hour.
“It looks to me like, with this rain coming in, it’s going to prolong the floods, so it could be as much [time] as this weekend. So you need to be prepared for having Highway 44 closed down this weekend.”
Horn says it will be virtually impossible to cross from one side of the Meramec to the other until the water starts to recede.
“You all are going to have to decide what side of the river you want to be on tonight, because you’re not going to be able to get back and forth,” he said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
In Illinois, US 50 at Silver Creek between O’Fallon and Lebanon in St. Clair County remains closed. The Brussels Ferry in Grafton is also closed.
Ongoing flooding
Heavy rainfall over the weekend has inundated several communities along the river, which is forecast to crest at record levels at Eureka and near-records at Pacific, Valley Park and Fenton on Wednesday.
According to Mark Diedrich, St. Louis County’s emergency management agency director, roughly 200 homes have been flooded so far and 1,500 more are threatened in Eureka, Valley Park, Fenton, Sunset Hills, and unincorporated areas along the Meramec River watershed.
Several neighborhoods have been cut off by flood waters, he said, but are not in danger of flooding.
Hundreds of volunteers turned out over the last few days to try to save homes and buildings in these areas, including about 200,000 sandbags filled and given out in Eureka. That town’s Eureka Fire Department said Tuesday it does not need any more volunteers.
Disrupting travel
At least one area health care institution has had to make special arrangements as a result of the road closures.
“For our employees who wish to stay tonight and also tomorrow, we have sleeping accommodations,” said spokeswoman Lulu Liang of the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System.
Liang said the systems two medical center sites in mid-town St. Louis and at Jefferson Barracks in south St. Louis County are fully operational.
“Basically all the clinical work – nurses, doctors, social workers, case workers – are required to be on site,” she said, “and if some of them are unable to come we will always have coverage.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, Liang did not have a count of how many employees planned to stay and use the sleeping accommodations. She said officials will continue to assess the road situation and its impact on staff in the coming days. But Liang also said many veterans have called to reschedule appointments because it’s unsafe to travel. Meanwhile, the flooded caused the suspension of Amtrak rail services across Missouri. MoDOT’s Kristi Jamison said passengers who already have tickets to travel between St. Louis and Kansas City will be bused instead, and they should expect delays.
Republished with permission of St. Louis Public Radio: http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/i-55-set-close-due-historic-flooding
