UNIVERSITY CITY — Barry Gibbons is spending thousands to repair his home here after his basement flooded with 5 feet of water in late July.
It was at least the third, and worst, flood over 38 years in his house in the 1300 block of Grant Drive, which backs up to the upper River Des Peres. He wonders whether spending money to fix the house is worthwhile, if it could flood again. He hears University City may buy out homes along the river.
“I’m not putting too much money in here for it all to happen again,” said Gibbons, 59, a retired school bus driver for the Special School District of St. Louis County. “I’m tired of buying stuff to lose stuff.”
Hundreds of homes and apartments across the region remain uninhabitable, condemned by their respective municipalities after July floods swamped neighborhoods from St. Peters to Caseyville. And that leaves residents with tens of thousands of dollars in repairs and stuck in a bind: Should they redo their houses? Or will floods just come again and wreck what they’ve done?
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University City condemned roughly 350 homes or apartments where electrical wiring, moldy drywall and furnaces needed to be replaced or repaired after July’s unprecedented rainfall. Flooding along the River Des Peres, which cuts through the city, was among the worst in the region. About 225 of those residences remain condemned, said University City lead inspector Tim Scott.
In Hazelwood, officials declared a total of 358 apartments in two complexes along Coldwater Creek, just north of Interstate 270, uninhabitable, said Dave Clemens, building code administrator.
And in St. Louis, more than 40 residences in the Ellendale neighborhood are in need of repair and inspection, including 28 that were condemned, said Nick Dunne, spokesman for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones.
Some municipalities, like St. Louis and University City, are allowing residents to stay in some homes while making repairs, officials said.
But flood damage is deceptive, Scott said: Electricity may work, but water-damaged wires leave the system susceptible to shortages and fires months down the road, he said. “A lot of time, residents have the idea that we’re working against them, but we’re concerned about well-being and hazards,” he said.
Typically, condemnation orders give property owners up to 60 days to make the repairs, Scott said. Officials in all three cities, however, said there’s no hard deadline and are working with property owners as much as they can to help ease the repair process.
Homeowners in University City say the repairs have proven costly and time intensive, even with financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency available to pay for property damage, temporary hotel stays or rental assistance.
On the real estate website Zillow, some property owners are putting up flood-damaged homes for sale “as is.”
Gibbons, one of about two-dozen homes on Grant Drive, estimated at least $35,000 in damage to his home and belongings, including a destroyed furnace, fridge, furniture and music instruments and equipment. His wife’s car was also totaled.
The condemnation order was another hit, Gibbons said.
“We didn’t know exactly what it meant,” he said. “We thought, ‘Where are we going to go now?’”
Contractors have been pricey and hard to schedule, he said.
“This is a lot of pressure,” he said. “A lot of people are already short of work and help because of the pandemic.”
In the 6700 and 6800 blocks of Vernon Avenue, where almost every home was condemned by city inspectors in mid-August, Yvonne Redmond has just finished buying and installing a new furnace, a new water heater, a new clothes washer, a dryer and a new freezer.
The contractor who installed the furnace, for about $2,000, had been difficult to schedule, said Redmond, 73. Her son helped tear out wet carpet, and her daughter helped find contractors to install the appliances. Her basement is concrete, so she didn’t have to replace the dry wall.
Now she needs to call University City to schedule an inspection.
“I finally got everything together,” said Redmond, who was staying with her children while getting her house repaired.
Down the block, Corey Campbell, an information technology worker, said he had already spent days drying things and replacing damaged appliances when inspectors condemned the home in mid-August. He invited them inside to see his home was dry and that the electricity worked. They declined.
“They already had their minds made up,” he said. “They came here two weeks after the flood and condemned all the properties without giving us any warning.”
After the home was condemned, contractors’ prices rose “sky high,” he said.
Campbell said he considered just leaving the house condemned. But he plans to fix it up, even if only to try to sell it afterward.
“I’m not the walkaway type,” he said.
