Metro-east drenched by about 4 inches of rain

Belleville News-Democrat

March 19, 2008

Despite the dark clouds and damp ground, the sun will shine again over the metro-east.

About 4 inches of rain had fallen in most parts of the metro-east area by press time Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. The rain is expected to taper off today making room for the mostly sunny skies and a high of 58 degrees Thursday.

'We're anticipating that this whole rain is moving southeast,' meteorologist Benjamin Sipprell said.

The rainfall caused flooding on East St. Louis roads, Mayor Alvin Parks said.

'We do have some areas that are challenged right now,' Parks said Tuesday night. 'We're moving very quickly.'

Parks suggested motorists take extra caution at certain intersections, including 68th and State streets, Eighth Street and Piggott Avenue, and 31st Street and Ohio Avenue.

Parks said crews would be resorting to 'unconventional ways' of pumping the water off roads because the truck the city uses to pump the water is in an auto repair shop. He said crews would be shoveling water onto grassy areas, and that they might have to ask residents with pumps for assistance.

Parks expected the truck to be available for use again this morning.

Meanwhile, the Monroe County Sheriff's Department could not confirm reports that residents were being evacuated from some low-lying rural areas.

The area remained under a flood watch through this morning. However, law enforcement agencies, including O'Fallon, Fairview Heights and Madison and St. Clair counties, were reporting no major flooding of local roads.

'We've had some minor flooding in certain intersections, but nothing out of the ordinary,' O'Fallon police officer Mark Lopinot said.

Sipprell advised motorists, especially in more rural areas, to beware of wet roads and standing water. 'It takes 1 foot of water to displace a car,' he said.

Since the beginning of the year, the greater St. Louis area has recorded 10.7 inches of precipitation, which is 4.24 inches above normal, Sipprell said. For the same time period last year, the area had recorded 6 inches of rain, he said.

At the end of both 2006 and 2007, the area has seen a shortage of nearly half of foot of precipitation and was suffering from some droughtlike conditions. 'Now it seems like we're kicking up, of course, because it's all dumping at once,' Sipprell said.

Torrential rains chased hundreds of people from their flooded homes and deluged roads in the nation's midsection Tuesday, killing at least two people in Missouri and sweeping a teen down a drainage pipe near Dallas.

The storm system also grounded hundreds of flights.

The National Weather Service posted flood and flash flood warnings from Texas to Ohio, with tornado watches in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

Emergency officials in Mesquite, Texas, searched for a 14-year-old boy apparently swept away by flood waters as he and a friend played in a creek. The friend was able to swim to safety and said he saw the boy get sucked into a drainage pipe, according to the Fire Department.

The body of an 81-year-old man was found in the water at Ellington, about 120 miles southwest of St. Louis, said Missouri State Water Patrol Lt. Nicholas Humphrey. A 21-year-old state Department of Transportation worker was killed near Springfield when his dump truck was hit by a tractor-trailer as he helped out in a flooded area, state officials said.

Heavy rain began falling Monday and just kept coming. Forecasters said some parts of Missouri could get 10 inches of rain or more before the storms finally stop today. Gov. Matt Blunt activated the Missouri National Guard as high water closed hundreds of roads.

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