5 ms·

This town is nearby to Cahokia [1], which was most likely the largest human settlement in North America until the late 1700s. It declined and was abandoned (in

This town is nearby to Cahokia [1], which was most likely the largest human settlement in North America until the late 1700s. It declined and was abandoned (in the 1300s or earlier) and there is ample evidence that flooding was a major cause of the decline. That general area has magnificent geographic advantage - the Mississippi River just barely downriver from the confluence of both the Missouri and Illinois Rivers. But it floods. It has always flooded, and it always will flood. The French founded St. Louis on the other side of the river, on a bluff, so it would be protected from flooding. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia

oefrha 7y ago
Flooding of the Mississippi is somewhat different from flooding of raw sewage, though. I’ve never lived in a naturally flooded region so can’t comment on the former, but the latter does sound way more disgusting and insanitary.
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  Also, the OP seems to be suggesting that the people who live here are somehow to blame for this.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    I don't read it that way. It's a simple matter of fact statement that the probability of that land flooding is very high.
  - OrangeMango 7y ago
    If you read that as me suggesting that the people living there are somehow to blame, I apologize: that was not my intention.
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      Sounds good. I apologize for interpreting it that way!
- philipodonnell 7y ago
  For us it backs up the sewers and makes things unsanitary, for them it ruined their crops and destroyed their buildings. It was arguably worse for them, but different problems with the same cause.
  - oefrha 7y ago
    Of course natural geography plays a major role in both cases, but the sewage backup problem in this case seems at least partially manmade. > Some date the beginning of the problem to the 1986 completion of Interstate 255, which looped traffic around the southern edge of the Metro East region, and was eventually (in 2002) declared by the Army Corps of Engineers to be impeding the flow of water from Centreville into the Harding Ditch, the drainage canal designed to collect surface water from the American Bottom and carry it to the Mississippi. The situation has only deteriorated in the meantime.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  Older cities used the same pipe system for both storm water and sewage setup, usually setup with an overflow dumping into a nearby body of water. When the overflow itself gets flooded it backs up the whole system and causes this
  - geebee 7y ago
    Yeah, this happens in SF too, which uses an antiquated gravity based single pipe system. It works cause of the hills, but it does have this problem. I read that a bit of old Sacramento uses this system too, otherwise you won't find it in California. https://www.sfweekly.com/news/shit-storm-why-wont-sf-stop-flooding-homes-with-sewage/ https://www.sfweekly.com/news/shit-storm-why-wont-sf-stop-fl... This is a good article. The upshot - San Francisco broadened pipes in wealthier uphill areas to reduce local flooding, creating a large bottleneck in a few lower income low-lying areas, so on very heavy rain days, yep, raw sewage backs up into residential areas (lower income, and among the few places in SF that still have a high percentage of children). To make it worse, San Francisco passed laws against paving over front yards, but in typical SF fashion doesn't really enforce the law, so every year, more and more storm water is diverted into the combined sewage/storm draining system. I'm not kidding when I say someone will probably die from this - during one of these floods, someone's dog was electrocuted, and like I said, there are a lot of children living in unpermitted downstairs units with dodgy wiring. This issue, while maybe not the single most pressing issue facing SF, is the one that goes farthest to convinces me that San Francisco's city government is inept. These are the people who are going to manage the infrastructure preparation for the more frequent and intense storms that accompany global warming?
    - wahern 7y ago
      The city is midway through a 20-year, multi-billion dollar sewer upgrade project, systematically refurbishing and replacing the system block-by-block, road-by-road, neighborhood-by-neighborhood. This is a big reason for all the insane construction citywide.[1] I don't know the details, but it looks like the flooding described in that article was addressed by the (now completed?) Lower Alemany Area Stormwater Improvement Project and/or Upper Alemany Drainage Improvements Project, both of which were part of the citywide master plan. [1] They're also repaving roads after replacement, but it seems coordination isn't as good as it could be, especially in highly trafficked areas. I assume this is why some really bad streets haven't been repaved--waiting for sewer replacement--and why there's a lot of bad patching--repaved too quickly.

oefrha 7y ago

Flooding of the Mississippi is somewhat different from flooding of raw sewage, though. I’ve never lived in a naturally flooded region so can’t comment on the former, but the latter does sound way more disgusting and insanitary.

Pfhreak 7y ago
Also, the OP seems to be suggesting that the people who live here are somehow to blame for this.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I don't read it that way. It's a simple matter of fact statement that the probability of that land flooding is very high.
- OrangeMango 7y ago
  If you read that as me suggesting that the people living there are somehow to blame, I apologize: that was not my intention.
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    Sounds good. I apologize for interpreting it that way!
philipodonnell 7y ago
For us it backs up the sewers and makes things unsanitary, for them it ruined their crops and destroyed their buildings. It was arguably worse for them, but different problems with the same cause.
- oefrha 7y ago
  Of course natural geography plays a major role in both cases, but the sewage backup problem in this case seems at least partially manmade. > Some date the beginning of the problem to the 1986 completion of Interstate 255, which looped traffic around the southern edge of the Metro East region, and was eventually (in 2002) declared by the Army Corps of Engineers to be impeding the flow of water from Centreville into the Harding Ditch, the drainage canal designed to collect surface water from the American Bottom and carry it to the Mississippi. The situation has only deteriorated in the meantime.
tomatotomato37 7y ago
Older cities used the same pipe system for both storm water and sewage setup, usually setup with an overflow dumping into a nearby body of water. When the overflow itself gets flooded it backs up the whole system and causes this
- geebee 7y ago
  Yeah, this happens in SF too, which uses an antiquated gravity based single pipe system. It works cause of the hills, but it does have this problem. I read that a bit of old Sacramento uses this system too, otherwise you won't find it in California. https://www.sfweekly.com/news/shit-storm-why-wont-sf-stop-flooding-homes-with-sewage/ https://www.sfweekly.com/news/shit-storm-why-wont-sf-stop-fl... This is a good article. The upshot - San Francisco broadened pipes in wealthier uphill areas to reduce local flooding, creating a large bottleneck in a few lower income low-lying areas, so on very heavy rain days, yep, raw sewage backs up into residential areas (lower income, and among the few places in SF that still have a high percentage of children). To make it worse, San Francisco passed laws against paving over front yards, but in typical SF fashion doesn't really enforce the law, so every year, more and more storm water is diverted into the combined sewage/storm draining system. I'm not kidding when I say someone will probably die from this - during one of these floods, someone's dog was electrocuted, and like I said, there are a lot of children living in unpermitted downstairs units with dodgy wiring. This issue, while maybe not the single most pressing issue facing SF, is the one that goes farthest to convinces me that San Francisco's city government is inept. These are the people who are going to manage the infrastructure preparation for the more frequent and intense storms that accompany global warming?
  - wahern 7y ago
    The city is midway through a 20-year, multi-billion dollar sewer upgrade project, systematically refurbishing and replacing the system block-by-block, road-by-road, neighborhood-by-neighborhood. This is a big reason for all the insane construction citywide.[1] I don't know the details, but it looks like the flooding described in that article was addressed by the (now completed?) Lower Alemany Area Stormwater Improvement Project and/or Upper Alemany Drainage Improvements Project, both of which were part of the citywide master plan. [1] They're also repaving roads after replacement, but it seems coordination isn't as good as it could be, especially in highly trafficked areas. I assume this is why some really bad streets haven't been repaved--waiting for sewer replacement--and why there's a lot of bad patching--repaved too quickly.