UNIVERSITY CITY, Mo. – The recurrent flooding in University City had cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and cost residents who lost everything a lot of pain and misery.
Deanna Anderson is one of many residents on Wilson Avenue in University City who does not believe anything has been done to help the flooding situation.
The record flash flood in July had taken a toll on people. They lost their belongings and many of their homes were condemned.
The residents said they heard promises from city officials for years to fix the issue but little has been done.
FOX 2 reached out to University City Mayor Terry Crow. He was asked if the city failed to resolve the flooding issue.
”I can’t believe you’re actually saying that after we’ve just been through a historic and devastating flood for all the people we’ve gone through if you can tell me where we dropped the ball.”
Crow said during his five years as mayor he has been dealing with the flooding problem.
“I met with the Army. We reignited the study with MSD and got it going Army Corps of Engineers to come up with proposals and came back with five or six proposals for different ways to address the story water runoff,” Crow said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did a study for University City in 1988 and a revised one in 2012. Matt Jones, project director for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it doesn’t seem like a lot was done from the University City.
“I think what we’re currently doing, just goes to show that it takes a lot of coordination from all the different agencies and levels of government,” Jones said.” It’s one of those things where flood risk is a group effort.”
The MSD executive director said they spend $650,000 on another revised U.S. Army Corp of Engineers study.
“I don’t know, there’s been a lot of change of personnel since we were requested to fund that,” said Brian Hoelscher. “I know they’ve got a lot of things going along a lot of pulls on their revenue and where they’re supposed to go with it.”
