ST. LOUIS — More than 200 residents were evacuated Tuesday after a broken pipe flooded the first three floors of an apartment building in downtown St. Louis.
An assistant manager at the Mark Twain Building complex on North 9th Street said all 213 residents of the building were evacuated onto five warming busses. Video from inside the building showed water flowing down one of the hallways.
The residents, many of whom are elderly, may be out of their apartments for a day or two.
About 90 of the residents are heading to Ameri-Corps St. Louis and Five Star Senior Center. It is unclear where the remaining residents will stay.
Folks must evacuate and go to the Five Star Senior Center in South City. Luckily, the senior center is planning on being open on Tuesday with the frigid temperatures.
"When it's this cold outside, it's a safety concern," the activities director at the center, Gabrielle Meyer, said. "We want to make sure that folks are warm, have adequate water and utilities they can use. The places that they were at are experiencing a water main break so we're happy to fill that role."
Metro called the center Tuesday morning and asked if they could take all of the evacuated residents. But, the center said they have a 50-person capacity.
"We looked up and a Metro bus was showing up and folks piled out with their trash bags full of things I'm assuming," executive director of Five Star Senior Center, Carla Landis Evans, said. "They just wanted a warm place. They've been up since 5 a.m. they told us."
About 30 residents from the Mark Twain building were able to be evacuated to the senior center. However, they don't have overnight accommodations and are only open until 3 p.m. on Tuesdays.
Residents were worried about where to go after the warming, breakfast and lunch at Five Star Senior Center. Managers at Mark Twain were still trying to figure out where to house everyone overnight.
This is the second apartment complex to experience damage from frozen pipes during the ongoing cold snap.
Fire crews were called out to the Heritage House Apartments on Olive Street in Midtown sometime before midnight for multiple broken water pipes. Those broken pipes caused the building to flood as residents attempted to mop up the mess on Monday morning.
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