Texans are still assessing the fallout from Hurricane Ike: $16 billion in damages and at least 10 dead there, with both numbers expected to grow. Millions of people face shortages of food, water and gasoline. It could be weeks before power is restored to Houston, even longer before the 1.2 million who fled the storm can return to their homes.
Getting their lives and communities back together will be a long, hard struggle.
Chicagoland residents aren’t accustomed to worrying about tropical downpours in September, but they got a watered-down taste of that medicine over the weekend as the remnants of Ike blew across Cook County. More than 100 billion gallons of water fell on the region, and quite a bit of it ended up in basements that have never taken on water in a storm. Thousands were forced from their homes, and they’ll have quite a mess to clean up when they’re finally allowed to return.
We, fortunately, saw the milder side of Ike. We also got a soggy reminder of the need for more flood-control measures to offset the effects of covering flood plains and marshes with asphalt.
Saturday’s rainfall of 6.64 inches at O’Hare International Airport set a single-day record. The old record was 6.49 inches, set on Aug. 14, 1987, when the region was reeling from the second “100-year-rain” in two years.
Average rainfall over the area served by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District was 6.83 inches from 1:30 p.m. Friday to 4:15 p.m. Sunday; some places got more than 9 inches. The 109-mile Deep Tunnel network and the district’s still-incomplete reservoir system were “maxed out” at the height of the rain, and pumping furiously to keep up. Flooding occurred mostly along natural waterways that overflowed their banks.
Water with no place to go ended up ankle- or knee- or even waist-deep in some communities. Homeowners reported floating appliances in their basements. In Des Plaines, young men paddled through major intersections in a canoe; in Albany Park, entire families were evacuated from their homes in inflatable boats. Roads were closed, traffic lights were out, trees and power lines were down. It’s a muddy, muddy mess out there.
Gail Emond and her husband were rousted from their condo in the ominously named village of Riverside. They grabbed the cats and moved to a motel room where they were trying, she told a reporter, “to stay calm.” Emond, though, was inclined to count her blessings.
“I’m sure other people have it worse,” she said.
