South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Climate change is the flooding culprit… not Mother Nature or a levee

Letters+to+the+editor

Letters to the Editor

To the editor:

Glenn Koenen wrote in his Oct. 10 letter that the Valley Park levee was not responsible for the flooding and that Mother Nature was the culprit.

I would like to add that mankind is the culprit here. Climate change and higher temperatures have caused an increase in the amount of water vapor in the air. That water vapor comes down in huge amounts now called “rain bombs.”

This is what occurred during both recent Meramec River flood events.

All bets were off in 2015 when 14 inches of rain fell in 36 hours. Or when 8 inches came down in a few hours in 2017. Just ask the city engineers in Granite City when 8 inches fell in a few hours and parts of the city were inundated.

They said all the sewers and pumps worked the way they were designed. It’s just that they weren’t designed for the new norm with climate change. We have to convert to wind and solar to prevent even bigger disasters in the future.

E.J. Glaser
Des Peres

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