GRANITE CITY, Ill. — A hand-written note on the front door of Duke Bakery reads "closed for flooding," a literal sign of the severe weather that damaged wide stretches of Granite City Monday.
Across the street, Granite City High School is open — not for the start of classes which were postponed again — for a different kind of guidance counseling happening at long tables in the gymnasium. Agencies are set up offering services and resources for flood victims.
"We've had people with freezers full of food overturned in their basements and float," 3rd Ward Alderman Dan McDowell said, estimating about 75 to 100 of the attendees this weekend came from homes in his district.
Cameron and Sarah Mertz had only been in their home a few months when the flash flood hit.
"It was just pouring through the windows, in the wall," Cameron Mertz said. "I don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do. I couldn't do anything about it."
He even had to postpone his first day at a new job.
"I looked out the window, and there was no way I was going to work," he said.
But there's one thing they can't postpone: Sarah is six-months pregnant and the flood is taking precious time that could use for baby preparations.
"I just hope the house gets cleaned fast. Like, mold wise," she said.
Around town, people fill up dumpsters as they clean up homes.
Don Ridlen has watched the constant fill-empty-refill cycle at Nameoki United Methodist Church.
"They dropped two dumpsters off Monday night, and they were overflowing Tuesday morning," Ridlen said. "They emptied them, and they're filled again. They've been filling them faster than they can haul them away."
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