Northern Illinois remained under a flash flood watch Saturday, as Naperville activated its Emergency Operation Center and reported some roads were impassable due to heavy rains.
Still, other communities appear to be much more affected by the flooding Saturday. Naperville is experiencing some problems, but the situation here does not appear to be as bad as it is in other towns.
More rain is forecast for Sunday, as Illinois is expected to be hit by the remnants of Hurricane Ike.
What's the situation at your house, and in your neighborhood? Do you have water in your basement? Are you affected by closed roads, or flooding in your neighborhood? (If you have pictures, send them to photooftheday@scn1.com.) What do you think of the response by city and other emergency officials?
Being a resident of south Naperville it has occurred to me that much development on both the east and west side of the Dupage river may contribute to large scale flooding for our neighbors to the south (Plainfield and Joliet). In the last decade there has been developments that nudge the rivers edge in areas like 103rd & Plainfield/Naperville rd, Boughton just to the east on P/N rd and areas as far north as Hobson rd(along the river). This development along with added quarry development and the artificially raising of land at 127 & P/N rd can only magnify the 100 year floods we seem to be experiencing every 10 years or less.
This exercise in stupidity seems to be played out over and over again as the mad dash to make money without proper planning, takes precedence over common sense. This type of scenario has played out in many closer in suburbs for decades (i.e. elmhurst/addison area), Those folks spent 40 million to buy a quarry to hold the flood waters, worked for a while but not this last flood, as North Addison was under water.
Don't build in areas that are in or near flood plains,period!!!
Realize that 100 year floods are happening every 10 years or less!!!
Common sense should tell us that any future development should be based on 2-500 year floods.
Any building that takes place in these flood prone areas should be based on a "regional aspect" with the highest concern being given to how this type of development will affect ones neighbor down stream.
"I heard that the Fawell Dam saved our bacon..."
Well I heard it did just the opposite, for those of us upstream. It caused the water to flow over the bridges at Williams Rd., Warrenville Rd., and Butterfield Rd. It also breached Rt. 59, River Rd., Raymond and others. It took the water level high enough that the sanitary and storm sewers failed in sections of Warrenville. I spent days battling to save my home.
At what cost did it save your bacon (rhetorical).
Thanks for education, I will return the truck inner tubes I bought for the big one.
Anon, the Fawell dam (which opens and closes for flood control) is not being removed - it is the McDowell Dam, about 1 mile north, just south of the McDowell preserve entrance. It is a 3 foot high limestone dam that looks like it was made by the CCC in the '30's. Removing this dam will not hurt flood control efforts and will instead help by removing silt.
here is a picture of the McDowell Dam:
http://pages.ripco.net/~jwn/mcdowell.jpg
you can see that the Fawell Dam is not affected:
http://www.dupageforest.com/news/McDowwelClosureMap.pdf
I left for work as usual at 7.20 aiming to get the 7.52 from Rte.59. Forget it! At 8.15 I was still stuck on Rte.59 at Jefferson. I don't know if Rte.59 was closed further North, or if the traffic lights at Rte.59 and N. Aurora were out, like they were the last time there was heavy rain. I couldn't get near I-88. I couldn't get down Plainfield-Naperville aiming for I-55 (gridlock) so I tried Ring and Washington. Forget it - that was closed too. I headed for Bolingbrook aiming to find some way on to I-55 and because of another flood ended up back on 75th at I think Wheeler, which was also at a standstill. By this time it was around 9.30 so we just headed home.
The emergency back up generator continues to be worth every penny when something like this happens. Started on the first pull after sitting for years.
Most of the roads in the Downtown and surrounding area remained open for most of the day with only a little bit of flooding on some that I saw. There was a heroic effort to fill sandbags by our city employees going on at the beach and people picking them up as fast as they were filled. I don't know where they were going.
I heard that the Fawell Dam saved our bacon and kept the downtown business district from being washed away by doing a controlled release of the flood water. The controlled release kept the flood waters approximately 1 foot below the road structure of the bridges so that they weren't blown away.
Ted,
Do you think the Sun Editorial Board should take another look at the removal of this dam? The whole project seems like a PC exercise at best or welfare for the contractors at the worst. Either way, removing the dam may prove to be a costly blunder if our downtown gets wiped out as the result. I'm guessing that all of the aquatic life that lives behind the dam will also be grateful.