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What if ...how the Flood of '93 might have been different By Virgil Tipton Post-Dispatch 12/26/1993
This story was originally published in the Post-Dispatch on December 26, 1993.
On Aug. 1, the Mississippi River overtopped two Illinois levees, engulfing the town of Valmeyer. What if the levees had held? Hundreds more homes in south St. Louis would have fallen to water and - probably - to devastating explosions.
A sound like a rifle shot echoes through a flooded tank yard in south St. Louis around dusk on July 30. Fire inspector Russ Schamel knows what the sound means.
A steel bolt as thick as a finger has snapped, and the cable lashing down a tank full of liquid propane has drifted away.
As Schamel watches, the front of the tank splashes into view, like a hippo nosing to the surface. A metal pipe still holds the tank's rear mostly under water.
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Another bolt snaps. And another. Schamel scrambles to get a better view. Each broken bolt is like a pin pulled out of a grenade that could level south St. Louis. Schamel radioes headquarters.
By the time six tanks have edged to the surface, St. Louis fire officials begin moving people from south St. Louis and Lemay. They fear the bobbing tanks might bend and break the connecting pipes. If the pipes break, propane would spew from the tanks, forming a floating bomb.
Candy Green, the city's emergency spokeswoman, grimly dials the newsroom of KMOX radio. "I don't care what you're doing," Green says. "This has to get out over the air now."
Fire officials evacuate a half mile around the Phillips Pipe Line Co. tank yard. They think that will be enough. The company's plans show that the pipes linking the tanks are two or three inches in diameter. Fire officials decide they can hose down any gas from pipes that small.
But the plans are wrong. Five of the tanks are linked with eight-inch pipes. Gas pouring from an opening that wide would be too much to control.
The next day, the river keeps rising. Ultimately, it will reach 51.2 feet at the Arch, higher at the River Des Peres.
At the Des Peres, paid workers and volunteers scramble to patch leaks in the sandbag wall. Neighbors, some still in business clothes, run outside to help.
On Aug. 1, the Mississippi shoves even more water into the River Des Peres, raising the river to the level of the sandbags atop the levee.
An air of desperation hangs over the neighborhood. From its mouth to the Gravois bridge, the river spills over sandbags in dozens of spots.
Soaked and sore and dead tired, workers do what little they can to control the river. The Des Peres is rising faster than they can stack sandbags.
In panic, they grab sheets of plastic. They weigh one end down with sandbags and lift the other end as high as their shoulders. Through the plastic, they can see the top two inches of the river flow by, as if they were peering into an aquarium.
A 6-foot section of sandbags at Carondelet Boulevard drops. Pumps pushing the water back into the river fail. When the water in the street reaches four feet deep, workers give up the fight.
The river claims almost 300 more homes. Last to go is the home of holdout Ed Macarthy, who had surrounded it with a 13-foot sandbag wall. That's just the beginning.
North and south of the Des Peres, the river gushes over the levees. Within hours, water swamps an additional 700 homes. A foot of water covers Interstate 55 where it crosses the Des Peres and Loughborough Avenue.
Meanwhile, on the city's north side, firefighters begin evacuating homes and hundreds of businesses in a swath along the riverfront six miles long and a half-mile wide. Officials set up a command post in O'Fallon Park.
They're afraid that a 100-foot section of the flood wall that protects the city will shift again, like a door being nudged open. If the river rises much more, they fear it could force the wall open all the way, flooding the industrial part of north St. Louis and the City Workhouse. Police shuttle inmates to other jails.
Across the Mississippi, Valmeyer stays dry behind a levee. Some Missouri towns are not so lucky. On the day of the crest, sandbag walls fall in Arnold, Kimmswick and Ste. Genevieve, leaving hundreds suddenly homeless. Four feet of water stand in downtown Ste. Genevieve's historic district.
In south St. Louis, water gradually lifts the propane tanks high enough to snap pipes. First to go are the five tanks with 8-inch pipes. About 150,000 gallons of liquid propane hiss out of them.
Firefighters spray water into the air, trying to disperse the gas. Horrified, they realize more gas is spewing out than they can control.
Fire Chief Neil Svetanics pleads with thousands of people in south St. Louis and Lemay to flee. "Trust me," he says on television and radio. "I know what I'm talking about."
The immediate area is mostly deserted. But nearly 100 firefighters on standby watch helplessly as a cloud of propane forms over the tank yard and grows 3,000 feet in diameter and 12 feet deep. Like the fake fog in a haunted house, it crawls along the ground, tendrils reaching forward and curling back to the main body.
A light breeze pushes the cloud to the Mississippi River. Something - maybe a gasoline pump, maybe static electricity - ignites the cloud and spawns a fireball almost a mile in diameter.
The concussion topples walls in Soulard and shatters windows downtown. Buildings and trees are instantly aflame.
The last sandbags on the River Des Peres blow away as if they are lint.
In an eyeblink, the blast slams the remaining 46 tanks off their mounts, ripping their pipes open.
Propane shoots out. More propane than before.
Ten times more.
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