Monday`s underground flooding in the Loop was matched by a flood of blue uniforms above ground.
With power turned off in many Loop blocks and the daily complement of workers and shoppers gone home, Chicago police and private guards moved in to keep peace and deter looting.
And so, instead of looking like a ghost town, the area resembled the site of a police convention. There were up to eight officers walking together along a street at a time and a police presence at just about every corner.
Except for directing traffic at intersections where stoplights were not working, there seemed to be little for the officers to do. No looting or other criminal activity had been reported to the first deputy superintendent`s office.
More than 100 additional police were assigned to the downtown area during the day, said David Mosena, Mayor Richard Daley`s chief of staff. At 6:30 p.m., they were replaced by 215 new officers who were working overtime or called off special duties.
Rookies pulled out of the police academy were teamed with veteran officers drawn from throughout the city. Gang crimes officers, as well as tactical teams from the city`s neighborhoods, also were relocated to the Loop. The city also was attempting to improve street lighting at night by using emergency generators. Portable lights were going up along south Michigan Avenue, at the Lake Street ”L” platform and at other spots in the darkened Loop Monday night.
Emergency Services and Disaster Agency workers from surrounding communities were called in by Cook County ESDA to help light the Loop by putting portable lights on the roofs of their vehicles and parking on street corners.
”We`re just keeping the streets lit up,” said Bret Jeffries, deputy coordinator with Chicago Ridge ESDA, who was working at Dearborn Street and Madison Avenue. ”We`ve got different units at each corner. ”It`s extremely quiet.”
During the day, businesses swamped private security firms with calls, asking whether their backup alarm systems were working and how long the batteries would last.
The phones were ringing constantly at Norman Security Systems. ”They`ve been going bananas all day,” said David Siegel, a customer relations employee.
The company chairman, Norman Kiven, said all his customers were on backup systems for burglary and fire alarms. The company, he said, was gearing up to replace batteries if the power outages last two to three days.
Still, Kiven said, the flooding and the outage were a lesson to how easily modern technology can succumb to an old-fashioned enemy such as water or fire. Some buildings in the Loop, he said, do not have backup systems.
”It just shows you how vulnerable we are,” he said.
At State and Madison Streets, half a dozen private security guards kept watch outside stores such as Filene`s Basement and T.J. Maxx. Security also was increased inside and outside Marshall Field`s on State Street, said spokeswoman Cathy Hofmann. And Carson Pirie Scott was taking extra
precautions, a spokesman said.
While retailers worried about unwanted guests, the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the south Loop was anxious about guests seeking to check out early.
Officials ordered a lockdown, forcing inmates to return to their cells, as a precaution in case power went out, said Robert Hafer, executive assistant at the federal prison. By Monday evening, the power was still on.
Miles away, the flooding was felt another way. Suburban police departments, as well as Chicago police, lost their links to a crime computer in Springfield when the power supply in the Loop was shut down.
Because the program known as the Law Enforcement Administrative Data System runs through computers in downtown Chicago, when the power went, so did police officers` ability to check for outstanding warrants.k
