ST. LOUIS – South St. Louis residents are calling for action after the City of St. Louis has failed to fix growing sinkholes for months, even years.
There are two large sinkholes across the street from each other in alleys off of Goethe Avenue at Kingshighway. You can see another big chunk of pavement is getting ready to collapse into the hole which formed two months ago.
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There’s a concern the garage may end up collapsing. Part of the garage floor already is.
“I’m really concerned because it looks like it’s starting to destroy all the concrete under this garage,” said Alan McKay, who lives next door. “(It’s) dangerous if there’s kids running around. The hole is partially exposed.”
City of St. Louis Streets Department workers dropped a large metal plate over the hole in April. They haven’t been back. The plate no longer covers the entire hole.
The second hole in the alley across the street had been there for at least three years, a resident said. A Streets Department metal plate covers it up to her fence, but the hole continues in her yard, she said.
“I guess I just really want to make sure somebody knows about this,” McKay said.
He’s concerned after a FOX 2 report on the plight of a north St. Louis woman who’s been trying to get a sinkhole fixed for more than a year. She has since started having issues with flooding in her basement.
“There’s one (hole) here. There’s one there (across the street),” McKay said. “There’s a street in between. There’s just so many potholes up and down. I just wonder how horrible is the condition of the streets around here right now, and what is the plan to get it fixed?”
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He got an email response from the Streets Department saying, in part, “…we are working on this issue to get it repaired.”
That was in April. There have been no repairs. FOX 2 reached out to his alderwoman, the Streets Department, and the mayor’s office but did not get responses on Monday, as the Juneteenth holiday is observed.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District said there were no MSD lines there.