KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
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Argentine residents are still calling on the Unified Government for answers and action after extreme flooding devastated the Kansas City, Kansas, neighborhood in 2025.
Cecilia Morales has lived in Argentine for 29 years — long enough to know what makes it special and what threatens it.
"People say, ‘Oh, you have so many problems down there,’” Morales said. “Maybe so, but I like the area, I like my neighbors.”
The issues with extreme flooding in Argentine have put the KCK community at risk.
"You have people that continue to lose things that can't be replaced," Morales said. "There's things down in my basement I can't replace.”
Argentine's last major flood was in May 2025. Since then, residents like Morales have pleaded with the Unified Government for answers about what caused it.
The UG and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are both involved in reviewing the events behind the flooding.
At the last neighborhood meeting KSHB 41’s Alyssa Jackson attended in September 2025, the agencies did not have any update for residents.
Officials said they would review whether a gate to one of the pumping stations not being fully closed prevented the station from being activated during the storm.
"There were questions that there were no answers to," Morales said.
Argentine Neighborhood Association President Katie Rico said the association has not heard anything from the UG, and residents are still waiting on answers.
"The neighborhood association has not heard anything from the UG since the last meeting in September, and the study that was promised has never been delivered or shared with the resident who attended the flood meetings," Rico said in a statement. "We would still like the information to be provided, as well as an emergency fund established to help offset costs when flooding incidents occur in the future."
The uncertainty has taken a toll on residents like Morales, who says the anxiety of waiting for the next storm is constant.
"My biggest problem is we're getting weather like this, and you're sitting here and you're thinking, ‘Oh my, what do I pick up off the ground of my basement? Do I get water this time or do I not?’” Morales said. "I'm sitting here thinking, ‘We're going to have a storm tonight. What am I going to go down there and try to salvage?’”
Morales also raised concerns about emergency access during flood events.
"What if there's an emergency, and you have all this water,” Morales said. “You have the buses that can't get through. One of them was up on the curb.”
Neighbor Alexander Madrigal has lived in Argentine for 34 years. He lives a few feet away from the neighborhood pump station and says flooding happens all the time.
His house was not hit in May, but he does get occasional water in his basement walls and floor.
Madrigal says he wants to prevent what he has seen before.
"All this water was all the way up the street there," Madrigal said. "Have somebody here to make sure that pump is going.”
Some neighbors told KSHB 41 they have seen UG trucks monitoring the neighborhood since May 2025.
Morales wants to see even more efforts, including an emergency fund, and says leaving is not an option.
"I worked numerous years to work for what I have," Morales said. "Find a place where this water's going to go, not in our homes.”
While her home has flooded before, it also did not flood in May 2025.
Still, it is the same compassion she has for her neighbors that she shared she would like to see from her government.
"Things aren't done overnight, but at least start on it,” Morales said. “Let us see that you are concerned about us.”
KSHB 41's Rachel Henderson reached out to the Unified Government and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The UG did not have an update to share because its stormwater engineer is out of the office. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not responded at the time of publication.
KSHB 41 plans to follow up in the coming weeks to learn more about the test results.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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