FLORDELL HILLS, MO (KTVI-FOX2now.com)—
Flordell Hills is a small community near Jennings. It's City Hall is even smaller and on Wednesday it was full of frustrated residents. They all came to listen to Metropolitan Sewer District officials, more importantly they came to make sure those officials heard them. Last Wednesday after more than 4 inches of rain fell in less than 30 minutes, streets looked like canals and water spilled or back flowed into basements either through garages or drains. Cars, furnaces, water heaters, washers and dryers all ruined."I'm not worried about the money coming to me, I just want the problem fixed because I put too much money in my house to just walk away from it," says one of the many residents with flooded basements last Wednesday.
Three big problems MSD can see: drop under garages, too much rain and an outdated storm drain system that the sewer district says it can't fix without a charge that a judge recently ruled against.
"It's not that we don't want to fix it, we do," says MSD's Lance LeComb, "We understand what goes on in people's lives when that happens, but you do need the funding to address these problems, and we don't have it, and that storm water funding invalidated by a Lincoln County judge last week is going to be a huge, huge challenge for us."
The impervious charge that was added months ago may not have a future after the ruling in Troy in a civil trial. While MSD bosses promise to look at the current system, an upgrade is impossible and for many of these people, so is reimbursement. If it didn't come in through the drains in basements then MSD cannot financially help.
"If they don't want to do anything for my money that's fine, just fix the problem. We are tired of going through this every year," says resident James Campbell.
