July 23 flooding... the worst ever.

The rains have subsided and the No Flood Zone is processing the extent of the damage and what the  community can do to further improve flood mitigation in the 8th Ward.
The Chicago Tribune had tweeted the following about the rainfall with a video clip:

• chicagotribune: Rainfall at O'Hare-6.97 in as of 5am could be largest single-day since records began in1871 http://trib.in/n5p7ZI

And the weather observations from NOAA confirmed almost 7" in 3 hours

---

Here are some thoughts from residents:

---

Dover and Pennsylvania was completely underwater. The water was up to my garage door. I had 10” of water in my basement, the most ever by far.

The City did a miserable job of controlling traffic here. All morning and into the afternoon, vehicles were going down Dover and Pennsylvania at high speeds, creating huge wakes that continually washed over my property and into my garage. One truck went through the intersection at least five times, causing more damage every time he passed, Virtually all my mulch and potted plants were washed away as a result of this. Water was forced into the tailpipes of my vehicles. The tailpipes are 14-16” above the ground, well above the water level at that time. I made 4 calls to the police dept. and was connected to dispatch. I asked them to send someone with horses to block the street. At 1:30, someone erected horses on Pennsylvania, but they never did anything on Dover. This intersection is one of the worst in the neighborhood when we flood and to let vehicles fly through the intersection is inexcusable. This caused a great deal more damage to my property. I ask that you bring this to the attention of the City. When this happens again, these streets have to be blocked off. There are enough other things to address than cowboys flying down the street.

I hope you fared better at your place.

Austin V. Stanton, Jr.

---

We had 2.5 feet of water in our basement and consider this by far the worst flooding event ever. With all the money that was spent on the Marshall Drive project, Julie and I are so frustrated that walking away from it all is starting to seem like the only option. Other neighbors feel the same way. Perhaps in time our neighborhood will be nothing but vacant lots.

I realize that right now I am not in the best state of mind to be making decisions, but the reality is that no one should have to live this way. These rain events happen annually, not once every hundred years, and it's time to execute Plan B - whatever that is.
Jim Vinci

---

It truly is a bad situation. Our house was hit hard as well. We lost the use of the recreation room and will need to replace 3 year old carpet ( as well as some furniture) which was installed as a replacement for the same type of flooding event.  

At an 8th Ward meeting on June 16, Tim Oakley, Director of Public Works and Engineering,  was nice enough to talk about plans related to the Storm Water Master Plan. He mentioned the design intent is to handle 4 inches of rain in 4 hours. This may not be enough. 

Also the results and recommendations from the meter data measuring water flow in sanitary sewers is due at the beginning of August 2011. Most of the water came into my house via the floor drain which means that there must be sanitary pipes that are taking on storm water.

The Storm Water Master Plan for the 8th Ward needs to be reevaluated and adjusted to handle larger flooding events.  


PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW TO FURTHER COLLECT INFORMATION ABOUT THIS EVENT.
Thank you.

News Stories about the Charewicz win in Des Plaines 8th Ward

Congratulations Mike!

Blogs

Incumbent defeated in Des Plaines Council race — Des Plaines news ... By Jennifer Delgado Charewicz also said he wants to address flooding problems in the ward and bring new businesses to town, which will help residents financially. “The more businesses (Des Plaines has), the less property tax we have to take,” Charewicz ... TribLocal - Des Plaines - http://triblocal.com/des-plaines/

Web

Sayad returns to office in Des Plaines; newcomer Charewicz also wins Unofficial vote totals with all six precincts reporting show Charewicz won with 469 votes to Mauro's 208 votes. Charewicz is a 30-year Des Plaines ... www.dailyherald.com/article/20110405/news/799998518/

Mike Charewicz Wins 8th Ward Alderman - Des Plaines, IL Patch Editor Lisa Cisneros: Here are the results for the Des Plaines Alderman ... Mike Charewicz beat out opponent Pat Mauro, winning 68.97 percent of the vote. ... desplaines.patch.com/.../mike-charewicz-wins-8th-ward-alder...

Stormwater Master Plan reviewed

by Austin Stanton

I have read the Stormwater Master Plan published by Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd dated July 2003 for the City of Des Plaines, IL.

To place our beliefs before the detail below, we believe that the City should strongly consider  revisiting the design standards for the proposed options since the comments below show that the proposed solution may fall short of the necessary requirements and expectations for our area. The City should take into account the results of the questionnaire/survey results that we produced last summer. The proposed solutions were based on virtually no input from our area.

The entire document is 140 pages, and currently is not publicly available in its entirety, so you can look here for the portions of the report relevant to the comments below where important key passages have been noted.

My comments about this report are as follows:

1. It is unclear when The City sent out the Flood Protection Questionnaire. The report implies that it was sent out after the 2001 flood event, but it may have been in 1986. Burke includes a separate table that documents phone calls received by The City during the 2001 event. It is important to note that there were very few respondents in our ward. I have no recollection of receiving the questionnaire, and I have been here since 1995.
2. The Plan is an update to the 1986 Storm Water Master Plan.
3. The proposed solutions are designed to handle the October, 2001 rain event (p 75), which was 3.8 inches of rain in 3-4 hours. This is close to last June’s event, but significantly under the September, 2008 event.
4. The report briefly addresses rear yard flooding (p. ES-3) and provides an estimate, but this issue appears to be outside the scope of this plan.
5. The priority list (p.ES-4) lists our area as the 4th highest priority. The highest priority area is in The Highwood Knolls. They have or had a significantly higher weighted score, by far, than any other area. This can probably be linked to the high level of responses to the questionnaire. Therefore, the lack of responses from our area may have hurt us.
6. On page 28, the report states that the “existing Marshall Drive storm sewer has insufficient capacity to convey tributary October, 2001 historic storm event runoff”.
7. On page 31, it states the same thing for the Pennsylvania Avenue storm sewer. These sewer systems are undersized. This is a critical piece of information.
8. Page 41 states the extent of the October, 2001 event and discusses the methods used to arrive at their recommendations.
9. Pages 73-77 provide a detailed description of how the storm systems in these 2 areas work. There are various alternatives that are discussed and evaluated; some are quite impractical, such as buying Friendship Park and turning it into a detention pond.
10. Alternative 1A solves the problem for Area 8 at the expense of Area 9. Alternative 1B is recommended to be used in conjunction with 1A. However, this is dependent on the existence of “the proposed Wille Rd. storm system”. It is not clear if that system was built. Note that Spaceco is the surveying division of Christopher Burke Engineering, so it should be assumed that the information they provided is accurate. Also, as I suspected, there are many technical difficulties with this option including easements and existing utilities. It is stated that if Alternatives 1A and 1B are done, flood protection for Area 8 is achieved during the October, 2001 event and “acceptable flood levels of 4.1 inches” occur at Pennsylvania and Oakton. This means that any event that exceeds the October, 2001 event would result in flooding exceeding 4.1 inches at Pennsylvania and Oakton.
11. Option 2, which seemed to be the most practical, won’t work due to existing elevations.

However the most disturbing aspect of this report by far, is addressed on Page ES-3. The report addresses the issue of the sanitary system surcharge. It recommends that the burden for this problem be put on the homeowner. I think that it is erroneously assumed that this problem is due to a combined sewer system, which we don’t have in our areas. Again, I believe that the proposed solution for our area will have little or no impact on the issue of the sanitary sewer surcharge. This should become a priority for us.

Going forward, we should determine if the City is going to revisit the design standards for the proposed options. Under the circumstances, the proposed solution may fall short of the necessary requirements for our area and almost certainly fall short of expectations. The City should take into account the results of the questionnaire/survey results that we produced last summer. The proposed solutions were based on virtually no input from our area.