Volunteers start cleaning East St. Louis neighborhood hit hardest by severe flooding
Dirty cars and moldy furniture line the streets of Terrace Drive and Mary Avenue in East St. Louis on Monday afternoon. The streets are muddy. A stench from flooding that didn’t recede for four days lingers.
Some residents rid their newly-damaged homes of items that they can no longer use. Some are talking with others about how they’ll clean their home. Others just aren’t there.
At 749 Terrace Drive, Glenda Merriweather and her son, Chris, are busy cleaning her mold-infested home. The living room carpet must be ripped out due to severe flash flooding on July 23 that required residents to evacuate their homes. The St. Louis metro area saw up to 12 inches of rainfall.
Estimates are that 40 to 50 families in East St. Louis were displaced due to flooding, according to East St. Louis Mayor Robert Eastern III. The mayor declared a state of emergency on Tuesday. The city drained floodwater from the area on Saturday, four days after flooding began.
Monday marked the first day of a clean-up initiative for the families returning to their homes. Led by Belleville organizer JD Dixon and his grassroots movement Empire 13, cleaning the neighborhood won’t end until families are comfortable in their homes.
Dixon was joined by We Are The People STL, another activist collective. Both organizations are accepting donations for residents in the area (Dixon said more information can be found on the groups’ social media pages.)
“The flood hit last week Tuesday, and as we’re talking to residents, they’re saying, of course, their furniture, all of their belongings are soaking wet,” Dixon said. “We just know, over time, mildew is going to build up. Having mildew in the home and entering your lungs is problematic.”
Mold and mildew
Volunteers helped Glenda Merriweather clean her home on Monday. She said she started developing a headache afterward. Merriweather assumes it was caused by the mold. She’s lived in her home since 1975 and is familiar with doing routine maintenance after a flooding event. She’s staying with her son until her home is safe. Her car is also filled with mold.
“Everyone was asking where can you pump this water, but I guess all that takes time,” Merriweather said. “It took four days to get the water down, and that’s the question that was asked—why is the water just sitting here? Everybody else’s water receded. But within that time, look at all this mold that’s growing. If we could’ve gotten this water down faster and got up in here, we could’ve gotten this mold out.”
Mayor Eastern told a reporter on Saturday that one pump failed, but said the city received temporary pumps from the Illinois Department of Transportation. On Friday evening, the city and American Red Cross announced a temporary shelter for residents in the neighborhood at Mason-Clark Middle School at 5510 State Street.
Eastern and the East Side Health District urged people in the area to evacuate on Friday due to health concerns from floodwater exposure.
Merriweather said she didn’t know about the announcement.
“I don’t have a car,” Merriweather said. “How am I supposed to get down there? Then you post it on your Facebook page. You gotta remember a lot of people my age and older, we’re not on Facebook.”
Keith Hannah lives down the street from Merriweather. He said there was 4-5 inches of water in his home during the flood. Now, Hannah said everything is destroyed.
He said they would have to “gut the walls out and just rebuild the whole house.”
“I don’t know if it’s the city’s fault, state, or whatever, but it is ridiculous,” Hannah, who’s lived in his home for 30 years, said. “I don’t think we get the help that we should from the government and the state.”
Merriweather is grateful for the $100 vouchers she received from Dixon on behalf of the United Congregations of Metro-East. Dixon is the group’s environmental justice organizer. She said her community needs more resources like that.
Community Lifeline, located at 1764 State Street , is accepting donations for toiletries, food and clothing. Donations can be dropped off at the nonprofit’s family resource center at 1468 State Street. The city also shared a Google form for residents who’ve been affected by the flood. Residents in need of assistance are encouraged to call United Way of Greater St. Louis at 2-1-1, Urban League at (618) 274-1150, and Community Lifeline at (618) 482-2950.
“Right now, we need the volunteers, the assistance to help clean this out,” Merriweather said.
This story was originally published August 1, 2022 at 7:31 PM.
