ST. CHARLES, Mo. (First Alert 4) – Rain fell fast Thursday afternoon in St. Charles and led to flash flooding on busy streets.
Lauren Parle was on her way home from work when she said out of nowhere rain fell fast.
“Literally looked like there was a lake on top of the intersection with actual waves,” Parle said.
Parle said water filled the roads at the intersection of Cave Springs Rd. and Mexico Rd.
“The water started dumping from the sky. Not like your normal waterfall. It was like someone filled up a bucket and was dumping it onto your windshield. The outer lanes people started not driving on them and turned their hazards on because the water was pouring over their car as they were driving through,” Parle said.
St. Charles County Councilman Tim Baker saw photos of the flooding and was shocked.
“I thought it was AI. I didn’t think it was real. Unfortunately it is real. We’ve got a lot of issues in the county, in St. Charles County, with stormwater. We don’t have an MSD out here.”
St. Louis City and St. Louis County have MSD to address stormwater concerns and issues.
Baker said St. Charles County handles it in unincorporated areas and then municipalities are responsible for their own communities, which he said makes it a challenge to approach regionally.
“I have people that can’t sleep at night when it rains because they know when they wake up there will be flooding in their basement. No one should live like that,” Baker said.
In St. Charles County Baker said he’s tried to get bond issues to fund stormwater projects but they’ve never come to fruition.
“We have a lot of stormwater problems but we have no mechanism to fund it. Currently we have stormwater studies we’re doing in my district to try to address some of these issues but once we get the studies they’re going to sit on the shelf because there is no funding to do anything,” Baker said.
When Parle got home from work on Thursday she also saw water pouring over the retaining wall in her neighbors backyard.
“We all sit essentially we back up to a big farm. There’s a sewer and it couldn’t keep up so it essentially created a waterfall in my neighbors backyard,” Parle said.
Baker said it is one of his priorities to improve stormwater issues across St. Charles County.
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