ST. LOUIS — People in south St. Louis spent Monday afternoon trying to pick up what's left of their cars and homes after flash flood waters rushed into the area.
The flash flood waters were so strong they picked up cars and moved them hundreds of feet away at the Cedar Creek Lodge Apartments and that wasn’t the only damage, it filled up their apartments too.
“It seemed like it did it in no time at all it was a heavy rain, and it just filled up because that’s all lower than everything up here,” resident Michael Spitzer said.
Residents said flash flood waters rose so fast they had no time to act to save their things or their cars.
“When we walked out, my car, my whole front end was in the water. And we parked that way over there and it moved over here,” resident Alexis Garrette said.
Dominique Welch said the water carried her car even further.
“It was kind of shocking to know that my car was literally parked right here. So to see that it's pretty much in the forest is crazy,” Welch said.
Then she said the water started rushing into the first-floor apartments.
“It just rushed in. It was like we were pretty much stranded. We had to go up to the second level of the apartment to kind of take shelter, I guess you would say, because the water was rushing in my apartment,” Welch said.
Welch took us inside to see the mess it left behind.
“The water probably got up to here,” Welch said as she pointed to a table in her living room.
She tried to save what she could, unplugging appliances and putting her stuff up as high as she could.
“My feet are actually sinking into the floor right now,” Welch said as she squished around the wet carpet in her apartment.
The Metropolitan Sewer District was at the apartment complex Monday afternoon.
They say this storm was as intense as a 500-year storm and they received about 430 calls.
“The system is not large enough to take in that much rain that quickly,” MSD Project Clear Sean Stone said.
Now they’re reaching out to voters to try and pass a $25 a year property tax to help fix the stormwater system.
“That would fund a stormwater capital improvement program, which would raise about $700 million over 20 years, which is roughly the amount we estimate would be needed to deal with the close to 600 projects we've identified,” Stone said.
MSD says if you have any flooding issues that you think might be connected to the sewer or stormwater system call them on their hotline at 314-768-6260.