Flooding

The city of East St. Louis (ESL) is located at the widest section of the Mississippi floodplain north of New Orleans. Before any levees were built this area was frequently inundated by high waters of the Mississippi. There have been a number of damaging floods recorded in the ESL area. In 1844, flood waters moved one and a half miles inland to the bluffs. After this flood, the city proposed an expensive plan to raise all East. St. Louis streets above the highest stage of the that flood. The plan was struck down by a the circuit judge before any construction had begun. Just a few years later in 1849, the City was also again flooded. In 1887, the major pushed through another high-grade ordinance. This time, a bond measure was passed and funding was secured. As soon as the money became available, a projects to raise the streets began, which took a decade to complete. Despite these efforts, in 1903 the city was again flooded, but buildings on the raised streets were safe but all the low ground in between was flooded. The community chose to protect itself by constructing a levee system. In 1907 the East Side Levee and Sanitary District was formed. The first levees to be built were along the channeled creeks. This was to protect the Bottoms from water backing up into the diversion channel. Between 1911 and 1915 the District constructed a levee to protect against flooding from the Mississippi. The levees were later improved, by strengthening and raising, as a part of work carried out by the Corps of Engineers under the Flood Control Act of 1936. This Act placed the Corps in the position as agency responsible for advising, and many cases providing, flood protection. The levees the Corps improved have never been overtopped.

The Mississippi River and the smaller creeks that flow through ESL have successfully been contained in times of flooding. The flooding experienced in ESL today is from another source: urban runoff. The City's storm water system is incapable of handling large volumes of water that drain from the impervious surfaces of the streets and roof tops because many areas of the city are below the water level of the Mississippi and therefore runoff that collects in these low spots needs to be pumped up into the river. When rainfall exceeds the capacity this system many parts of East St. Louis are flooded. This type of flooding is particularly damaging because standing water may remain on the site for weeks.

Document author(s) : Barb Baugher, Diane Timlin, Mark Child
HTML by : Barb Baugher, Diane Timlin, Mark Child
Last modified: 29 October, 1995

East St. Louis Action Research Project