ST. LOUIS – One week after FOX 2 first reported on a very large, very strange, and very dangerous build-up of ice in a south St. Louis alley, residents are reporting a dramatic change.

Alleys behind Cherokee Street toward Minnesota Avenue were covered under such thick ice. They were impassable by car or by foot. But that ice is almost completely gone.

Residents believe a pipe burst inside a vacant home on Minnesota Ave. during that stretch of single-digit temperatures a couple of weeks ago. Flood waters rose up and out of the cellar door, then down the alleys. Ice built up for more than five days.

Drivers kept getting stuck. Residents repeatedly fell while trying to throw away their garbage in the alley dumpsters.

“It was too deep,” Angela Barnes said. “When I saw (the ice last week), I went back the other way. I was like, ‘No, I’m not going that way. I’ll go around.’ Me and ice do not get along.”

After FOX 2 contacted the City of St. Louis, a city water department crew shut off service to the vacant house, but days later, the ice remained.

Warmer temperatures did not seem to be having much of an effect.

After our second report, a city street department crew responded, broke up the ice, and hauled it away.

The transformation has been incredible.

Residents can use their alley dumpsters again without fear of falling. Drivers can get through without getting stuck. Angela Barnes no longer has to walk the long way around.

“(The city crew) came out. The job is done,” Barnes said.

After nearly 10 days, the great alley glacier of ‘24 is finally gone!