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Losing It All in Prairie du Rocher During the Great Flood of 1993 | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

August 9, 2023

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COURTESY OF GABE DORION This photo shows the view from the floodwaters when Gabe Doiron went out to check on his family home.

Gabe Doiron was 19 years old and living with his parents just outside Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, in July of 1993. He and a pal were returning from a weekend trip to Nashville when they realized that the flood the adults had been talking about for months was finally here.

“I knew the river was coming up,” Doiron says. “I kept hearing about how much water there was up north, and I suspected it could be a little problem. But when we came back, one of the roads to Prairie du Rocher was closed. I was really surprised. We’d only been gone for just a couple of days. That was probably three weeks before the flood.”

On July 21, Prairie du Rocher Creek, a tributary to the Mississippi, swelled, and authorities feared the town’s levee was going to break. A temporary evacuation was ordered. But thanks to feverish sandbagging efforts on the part of the National Guard (who ended up camping out in the town’s school), a levee break was averted.

“I remember my mom saying at the time that with a different sort of natural disaster, like a tornado or a fire, up to the point that it actually happens you live relatively normally, and then there’s a catastrophic event. But in this case, it was weeks ahead of the flood we had the National Guard there telling people they had to evacuate. For three weeks before the flood, we had to be out of our house. And we didn’t even know for sure if it was going to flood, because it never flooded in that area before.”

Plus, his mother pointed out that, with flooding, the waters have to recede before you can start rebuilding and repairing. Displacement can last for months.

Doiron’s family lived outside the town in a house built on a ridge. Doiron’s grandfather had bought the home more than half a century before with floods in mind.

“Our house was built in the 1940s after real significant floods in the 1930s or early ’40s. My grandpa’s story was that he wanted the house because the last flood water didn’t get up to that ridge. So [in 1993] that’s why we left a lot of things in our attic, in the tops of our closets, because we thought we were already on a ridge. We thought if the water gets over the top of the levees, that the top of our house would still be out of the water.”
click to enlarge COURTESY OF GABE DOIRON Gabe Doiron’s photo shows the sandbags used to try to protect Prairie du Rocher,

Doiron recalls, prior to the flood but after everyone had evacuated, how common it was to hear rumors that the levees around Prairie du Rocher had broken.

“We were staying with my grandparents and in FEMA trailers when there was this one rumor that the levee [around Prairie du Rocher] broke. Everybody was kind of frantic because they imagined this wall of water coming. But my dad and my brother snuck out to the levees with a three-wheeler and they drove about 10 or 15 miles up the levee system. They kept going to see where the break was, and they never found it. They came back and said there’s no levee break. There were lots of rumors that would spread since there was no internet to confirm anything.”

The levee around the town eventually got to be 51 feet high, reinforced with concrete. Despite the efforts by 130 National Guard members and countless volunteers, by the end of July the Post-Dispatch referred to the levee surrounding the town as “endangered.”

click to enlarge COURTESY OF GABE DOIRON More sandbags can be seen in this photo taken by Gabe Doiron.

In early August, a levee north of Prairie du Rocher by Columbia, Illinois, broke. Water began heading south. In a gambit, the authorities actually blew up a portion of the levee they had spent the past weeks constructing, intentionally flooding some farm houses outside of town in order to relieve pressure on the levee system around the town itself. “We’ve got nothing to lose,” a county official said at the time.

The Doirons’ home flooded. Soon thereafter, Gabe and a neighbor went out to look at the damage.

“The rumor came around town that if you didn’t get a picture of your house underwater, the insurance wasn’t going to pay for any repairs. So I hopped in a boat with a neighbor to go take pictures. This was the first time I’d been in the middle of the water. My friend’s mom broke down crying.

“I had three brothers and a sister. My parents got a FEMA trailer about 15 miles away in Redbud. And the problem was that the trailer was essentially a two bedroom trailer. My older brother, he was kind of on his own in college. I lived with my boss in Ruma and then my grandparents in Prairie du Rocher proper for a while. I think it was common for people to be putting up people like me, younger guys. I learned … what it actually means to help somebody. That really meant a lot to me.”

click to enlarge COURTESY OF GABE DOIRON Gabe Doiron’s family had to haulmost of their waterlogged belongings out oftheir house.

When the waters receded and the Doirons finally were able to get back to their house, they found the lower level of the house and the basement full of rotten debris and water damage.

“We made a dump, like a temporary trash heap for all the stuff, because we just didn’t have anywhere to put anything. You had to give up on a lot of stuff. That three-wheeler, for instance, the one I told you about: I dragged it out of the shed and put it outside, and a guy just asked if he could have it. It was mine. It worked. I baled hay all summer when I was about 13 years old to save up 200 bucks and buy it. I rebuilt the motor when I was 14. But I didn’t have anywhere to put it. It had just been underwater for three weeks. So Dad said, ‘Hey, this guy’s gonna come pick up your three-wheeler. Do you care if he has it?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I guess that’s fine. I don’t really know.’ Then, about six months after that, I contacted him. I said, ‘Hey, you got that three-wheeler? I’ll take it back.’ And he’s like, ‘No, I sold that.'”

But of all the things that Gabe Doiron experienced in the flood of ’93, it’s the Mennonites that stick with him as much as anything else.

“The Mennonites were in the area, and they helped clean up. They did the dirtiest, nastiest jobs. Once the water went away, the basements were just full of nasty, rotten flood. The Mennonites came to our house, and they went into the basement, singing hymns the whole time, cleaning out all that sludge. They didn’t talk at all. They just sang the whole time. It was pretty much an empty shell of a home, and so their singing, this real angelic type of music, echoed around the house.”

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

12 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

12 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

12 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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