Had he been awake, Eric Stein would have known early that a devastating flash flood was on the way.
That’s because at 1:40 a.m. Tuesday, he received a text from an experimental early warning system he’s helping to develop in University City, where the River Des Peres and Deer Creek frequently create flash flood dangers during heavy storms.
“If I hadn’t dozed off, I would have called 911 immediately,†Stein says. “If there’s any bright side to this, we now know for sure that the system works. It did what it was supposed to.â€
Stein is a member of University City’s Storm Water Commission, which for the past two years has been developing an early detection system for first responders and citizens in case of rising waters. The goal is to help avoid deaths and dangers from floods, with people ending up in submerged vehicles or having to be rescued from homes or apartments in low-lying areas.
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“I wish there was some kind of warning,†said Sahara Jamal on Tuesday. He is one of the residents of the University Commons apartment complex whose car was engulfed by floodwater.
Soon, that warning system could be active.
The system has three water gauges, including one at Heman Park, and features an algorithm created by Bob Criss, a retired Washington University professor and flooding expert. It predicts when rainfall is coming fast enough that river banks will overflow and create flash flooding.
Criss has long been a voice of reason when it comes to flooding issues in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, arguing against flood-plain development, pushing for policies that give rivers room to roam and warning officials that the water always wins.
We first met a few years ago, when we were part of a group examining rising waters in the Missouri and Mississippi rivers after devastating floods in 2015. Then, as now, Criss said part of the problem is that developers and elected officials always believe there is some engineering solution that will put off the next flood. But in most cases, the solution just makes the rising water somebody else’s problem.
Indeed, that’s , which was straightened and covered up and turned into a mostly underground beast more than a century ago. So Criss and Stein are working on the early warning system, which they hope will soon be integrated into the city’s “Code Red†alert system operated by the fire department and dispatch center. When operational, it can send “amber alert†type warnings to citizens who sign up for it.
After that, Criss hopes the system is something that other cities can copy.
None of that will help University City recover from the current storm. Stein had 8 feet of water in his basement and spent all of Tuesday getting it pumped out. The cleanup will be a long haul for some folks.
But the next storm won’t be far behind, Criss warns.
“We’re certainly having more intense storms more frequently,†he says.
Two days after he said that, the next storm hit. Thursday’s sudden afternoon rains also triggered the early warning system and signaled yet another round of flooding.
Criss blames climate change but also the region’s history of development, where there is always another parking lot and another subdivision to be built. All that impervious surface adds to the city’s existing stormwater issues.
Criss is often a naysayer at public meetings — think of recent plans in Maryland Heights or Webster Groves — where developers offer sure-fire plans to lift property out of a flood plain and generate tax dollars. Folks like Criss issue warnings, usually unheeded, that the proposals will exacerbate flooding.
“The big lesson we never seem to learn is building in the wrong place,†Criss says. “But often when we try to fix these things, we do them in exactly the wrong way.â€
Earlier this year, Criss published a paper that builds on the same sort of research he used to develop the early warning system in University City. It suggests the maps used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to think in terms like 100-year or 1,000-year floods are obsolete. The water moves faster these days, with storms that are larger and more devastating.
That’s the lesson of the July 2022 flooding in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ region, Criss says. Leaders should not get complacent and think this was a once-in-a-generation event.
“These sure the hell aren’t 100-year floods,†Criss says. “They’re like two-year floods. It’s staggering.â€
Post-Dispatch reporter Bryce Gray contributed to this column.