Storms rolled into Chicago and surrounding areas Tuesday afternoon, the latest of several rounds that have produced heavy rains and flash flooding in the city and its suburbs so far this July. As residents prepare for more potential floods Wednesday, city dwellers and suburbanites are still reeling from the extensive property damage caused by recent downpours.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a disaster proclamation Tuesday for several Illinois counties, including Cook County, due to recent weather events. The proclamation allows local entities access to state resources and emergency personnel.
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“Many Illinois communities suffered extensive damages due to last week’s torrential rain and severe weather,” Pritzker said in a news release. “To support those impacted across the state, I have signed a disaster proclamation to mobilize every available resource, accelerating the recovery process and providing relief for our residents.”
[ Thunderstorms wreak havoc across Chicago, flooding highways and homes, but rain may not put much of a dent in drought ]
According to the National Weather Service, heavy rains could turn into “torrential rainfall” with a threat of flash floods after midnight and until Wednesday afternoon. Yet the weather service noted a “good deal of uncertainty” remained in regards to these severe threats overnight and throughout Wednesday.
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“(We’re) probably going to see showers redevelop late tonight into early Wednesday morning, probably around the 3 or 4 a.m. time frame, lasting into the morning commute,” said weather service meteorologist Scott Baker. “And then we’re expecting additional storms to move into the area, with a storm system tomorrow midday, kind of late morning. Starting around 11 a.m. and then lasting into the early afternoon, about 2 or 3 p.m.”
At a news conference Tuesday morning, Cicero residents asked for state, county and local agencies to invest and come up with long-term solutions to improve the city’s “crumbling” infrastructure and better manage wastewater.
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Cicero police officers block the entrance to a town hall meeting as dozens of Cicero residents demand to be allowed in to speak over recent flooding on July 11, 2023. Residents were eventually let in to the meeting. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Lifelong Cicero resident Alejandra Yanes, 18, said when she got out of bed the morning of July 2, her feet splashed in water. The basement where she lives with her mother, two sisters and grandparents was flooded up to her ankles.
The rest of the day was a blur, she said. The family had to use buckets to get rid of the water until a water restoration service company got there five hours later — when levels reached Yanes’ hips. With no electricity, the fridge stopped working. Their fresh groceries were doomed.
When one of her sisters — who has epilepsy — had a seizure, the family had to take her to the emergency room because they couldn’t use her medicine, which needs to be refrigerated, she said. Flooded streets slowed them down on their way to the hospital.
Yanes said her family lost everything.
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“We have been sleeping on the floor. We don’t have any hot water,” she said. “Water keeps coming in whenever it rains really bad. So I’m hoping that (tonight) it’s not as bad.”
Yanes said she attended the news conference Tuesday on her own, determined to share her story with town leaders and officials.
“I knew that I needed to be a voice, not only for my own family, but for the Latino community, because most of them don’t speak English,” she said.
As climate change worsens and causes more frequent and disastrous weather events, these will disproportionately affect working-class Black and brown neighborhoods, Cicero community members said in a news release.
[ After more flooding in Chicago, how to combat intensity of storms fueled by climate change is top of mind ]
The group of Cicero residents is demanding more resilient, green infrastructure: the creation of green spaces or parks, the planting of trees and the use of native species in rain gardens, all of which absorb and filter runoff stormwater and help prevent flooding.
Shapearl Wells speaks out at Cicero Town Hall over recent flooding, in Cicero on July 11, 2023. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle also issued a disaster proclamation Tuesday afternoon in suburban Cook County for the July 2 storms and floods, which dumped up to 9 inches of rain in certain parts of the county. Berwyn, Cicero and Stickney were the most affected municipalities. The mayor’s office in Berwyn and the president of the town of Cicero called for disaster declarations last week.
Preckwinkle said the proclamation is the “latest step” in her administration’s process of safeguarding suburban communities and assisting in the aftermath of the storms at the beginning of July, as county municipalities have received more than 3,400 reports of property damage.
The Tuesday forecast prompted the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to issue an Overflow Action Day alert and encourage residents to reduce water use. It suggested delaying showers and baths, flushing toilets less frequently and waiting to do laundry or wash dishes. More tips can be found on the MWRD’s website.
According to the MWRD, when there is a potential for combined sewer overflow — when heavy rain overwhelms local sewers and reclamation plants — conserving water allows the sewer system more capacity to handle increased volumes of water. When there is overflow during extremely heavy rainfall and the Chicago River’s level exceeds the elevation of Lake Michigan, the MWRD will reverse the flow of the river. Opening the gates for this reversal allows sewage and runoff into the lake.
Most recently, the MWRD had to open the gates for overflow to spill into Lake Michigan when heavy rains hit the city July 2. After experiencing some extended periods of dry weather, northeastern Illinois was showered with several inches of rainfall in the span of four days. In two separate instances between July 2 and 5, Chicago and its outskirts experienced thunderstorms and heavy rain that flooded countless streets and basements.
“With the amount of rainfall that we’ve seen in the Chicago area over the last two weeks and these repeated rounds of rainfall over and over, we definitely do have the issue with saturated soil,” Baker said. When the ground is waterlogged from recent storms, new rain cannot be absorbed and can thus develop into flooding.
“And the McCook Reservoir is definitely filling up, so that’s another thing that we watch, because that’s where all the water that runs off the city of Chicago is stored,” Baker added. The flood-control reservoir, located in southwest suburban McCook, is over 20 times bigger than Soldier Field and is part of the $3 billion Deep Tunnel sewer system built to collect and store sewage and runoff from Chicago and Cook County suburbs.
Unfortunately, weather for the rest of the week will likely remain damp and grim in Chicago and its suburbs.
“Best chance for a drier time would be Thursday. However, we can’t rule out potential for some shower, maybe thunderstorm activity on Thursday,” Baker said. “But it does look like again on Friday, we will have another round of showers and storms in the area.”
adperez@chicagotribune.com