ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – (UPDATED 1:16 p.m.) The Missouri Department of Transportation announced Tuesday afternoon that they expect to close Interstate 55, Lemay Ferry and Telegraph Road after midnight due to floodwaters.
Those routes are a no-go for rush hour Wednesday morning.
“You all are going to have to decide which side of the river you want to be on when you go to bed tonight, because you’re not going to be able to get back and forth,” says MoDOT’s Greg Horn.
Here’s what the rising floodwaters look like across from Circle K gas station at 141 and Romaine Creek in Fenton. (Mark Reardon/KMOX)
In addition, Highway 21 at Tesson Ferry at the Meramec River, and Route 141 at Romaine Creek Road are expected to close sometime between now and rush hour.
“We have a lot of closures, and we’re going to need people to understand this is a huge event — probably the biggest we’ve ever had,” Horn says.
Route 100 (Manchester Road) from I-270 to Gray Summit remains the new I-44.
Construction work in Jefferson County along I-55 and Highway 61 has been suspended until flooding moves out of the region.
There are over 80 road closures in the region.
Rain On The Way
Another round of heavy rain is in the forecast for the St. Louis metro area, according to National Weather Service’s Mark Fuchs.
Rainfall will amount from 1 to 3 or more inches over the next few days.
“The big wild card on the Meramec River, especially on the lower end of the Meramec in Arnold, is the height of the Mississippi River,” Fuchs says.
Should the river crest significantly higher than the earlier prediction of just over 40 feet, “that would of course impact Arnold in a bad way,” he says.
