Posted on 02/12/2021 12:39:54 PM PST by dynachrome
Sharon Smith has to plunge her toilet to get it to flush. On rainy days, wastewater spills into her yard from nearby drainage ditches. Twice in the last year her house has flooded, leaving behind the sickening smell of sewage, she said.
Her carpets are ruined, the floorboards are buckling, the bathroom wall is pulling away from the tub, she said. In the laundry room, the worst-hit part of the house, the smell of mold lingers. “I want to move, because this flooding is ridiculous,” said Smith, 59.
For decades, residents of Centreville, a nearly all-Black town of 5,000 in southern Illinois, just a 12-minute drive from downtown East St Louis, have been dealing with persistent flooding and sewage overflows. The smell of it is in the air all over town after a rain, and bits of soggy toilet paper and slicks of human waste cling to the grass in neighborhoods where children used to play on warm days, locals said. Kids don’t play outside any more. Gardens don’t grow.
Like Smith, other locals say their water tastes odd and refuse to drink from their taps, relying on donated shipments of bottled water. They worry about the long-term health effects of living under such conditions, and they say that for years elected officials and local utility companies inadequately addressed their cries for help.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Yes, all of their “Officials” are Black.
“These blacks voted in black officials who don’t fix the problems.”
I doubt if white officials could fix the problem now. You destroy a neighborhood with crime and drugs and it is tough to recover.
http://www.cityofcentreville-il.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Backfow-Device-waiver.pdf
Huh, so in 2015, in an effort to address the constant sewage problems, the town implemented an effort to replace sewage lines, but if you signed the above waiver, you wouldn’t get a property assessment for the cost of this. And wouldn’t you know it, enough residents signed the waiver (now required before an occupancy permit can be issued) that the repairs never happened.
So they were addressing it, but residents didn’t want to PAY for it.
Surprise, surprise, surprise...
A neighbor I had in Ft. Lauderdale cut his outdoor lights cable while edging and made repairs but kept blowing circuit breakers. He came to me for answers. After seeing his repairs, I made the proper repairs. Then explained that all 4 wires were not to be in a square knot!
He was a White 30 yo!
White Lives don’t Matter but White Taxes do Matter.
Pshaw...that’s going to be happening everywhere because cities, states, the country have been paying government union workers more than can be afforded, they’ve been handing out welfare like there’s no tomorrow, they’ve been inviting illegals to get all the freebies they can, making bridges for endangered critters to cross the road, painting rainbow crosswalks , BLM streets and making news signs for renamed buildings.
The ticket is about to come due all over this country and it’s going to be hell.
Cry, cry, baby. Won’t be anyone to meet your needs or afford them.
I think the problem goes deeper than that.
People with middle or upper class incomes do not choose to live in flood prone areas. The damage from floods is an unnecessary expense. This results in lower land prices and attracts people with lower or no income.
Wise policies can make the difference. Proper adherence to building codes and investment in infrastructure can make such a place habitable.
Liberal policies that divert resources into nonsense like global warming, saving snail darters, midnight basketball, and free needle exchanges do NOT leave money to address flood control projects, adequate sewer systems, or anything else that would make a community livable.
After some years, those who can move away are gone. All that remains are the helpless who are unable to carry the burden.
They’ve had both white and black mayors since at least the late 70s and the party affiliation for all of them starts with a D. This is obviously Trump’s fault.
“I had the opportunity to travel through East St. Louis almost 25 years ago. It was a boarded up wasteland then.”
It was that way 50 years ago. They have just expanded to the surrounding communities. Fifth or sixth generation of welfare Democrats. Democrats have destroyed the family structure but don’t care because the population of eligible voters is primarily single moms who vote Democrat. They depend and feed each other. Very sad.
ten years before that is was still pretty vibrant
Took a short google street view walk around.
Some nice homes on Church St.
The church on Church St needs repairs.
‘Smokey Joes’ on Church St. seems to be a popular spot.
A fair number of roofs need work.
I just looked at the town on Google maps. It’s the most weirdly laid out town I’ve ever seen. Three small lumps, roughly parallel to each other, with some other town or towns in between, connected by tiny strips which are as skinny as a single street.
According to Wikipedia, “The city is located on a Mississippi River floodplain known as American Bottom, and experiences chronic flooding and raw sewage disposal problems due to the area’s inadequate system of drainage ditches, levees and emergency pumps.”
So it’s basically a sump that needs to be constantly pumped out.
Deferred maintenance of infrastructure will always catch up to you sooner or later. The town elected a mayor and city council (or whatever their form of government might be in a city of this size) that for 30 years always found things to do with the money, other than maintaining the sewer system. They very likely also walked down Patronage Hiring Highway and filled the public works department with people hired for something other than competence.
This is no different than South Africa. Blacks were given white peoples farms. Now...no crops. They want whitey back.
You’re right.
all-black population ...
all-black city council:
http://www.cityofcentreville-il.com/city-council/
most likely nearly all-black police, fire department, and all other city departments ...
so how can this be whitey’s problem?
If it was in a white town, would whites fix it? So if it’s in a black town, are blacks fixing it? It’s a fair question.
This is the kind of divisional BS headline that tears this country apart. All the people they interviewed stated it was BS government corruption, they’re in a flood area and high water table causes backups and pipe problems.
victim mentality = blame whitey + need for reparations
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