The dark days flooded back into Lake and McHenry Counties with a vengeance Wednesday.
Skies were dark, basements were dark, traffic lights were dark and the mood of Lake County residents was just as bleak, as they struggled to recover from up to four inches of rain that was dumped on the area Wednesday morning and the fear that the worst might not have come yet.
The downpour raised June’s rainfall to 9.96 inches at O’Hare International Airport, making it the state’s wettest June since 1892, when 10.58 inches were recorded. June also was the state’s sixth-wettest month recorded since the weather service began collecting data in 1871.
On Wednesday, families awakened to darkened houses and basements that had been transformed into swimming pools. Commuters struggled through flooded and closed roads. Two Waukegan radio station’s signals were literally washed off the air. And residents began the messy task of cleaning up. And practically everyone was asking:
When will the rains end?
“There’s no sign of getting out of this for the next 5 to 10 days,” said Greg Soulje, a spokesman for the Central Weather Service.
Reacting to the severe weather and a threat of more to come, Gov. Jim Edgar on Wednesday declared Lake and McHenry Counties and 15 other counties disaster areas. That was the first step toward making affected homeowners eligible for low-interest repair loans backed by the federal government.
The far north and northwest suburbs were suffering from the kind of flooding that hit Chicago’s South Side, Du Page County and the southern suburbs in early June. While the rest of the metropolitan region was spared Wednesday, more rain could spell trouble, as swollen streams and rivers could carry flood waters south.
In Lake County, one death was attributed to the storm.
Police said Donald Saxton, 27, of Round Lake died during the Wednesday-morning rush hour when his car collided with another car at Illinois Highway 134 and U.S. Highway 12 in Fox Lake, where the storm had knocked out the traffic lights.
Farther east, in Round Lake Beach, residents used boats to navigate flooded streets.
In Gurnee, inundated residents salvaged what they could from flooded basements and stacked sandbags in hopes of holding off the seemingly inevitable next deluge.
In McHenry County, the storm flooded ponds, streams, roads and ball fields, said Barry Valentine, assistant director of the county’s Emergency Services and Disaster Agency.
The rain totaled about three inches in Woodstock and McHenry and four inches in the Pistakee Highlands subdivision along the Fox River north of McHenry, Valentine said.
Three bridges in McHenry Township collapsed under the weight of water as ponds, streams and lakes flooded, officials said. Streams and ditches that run into Lake In The Hills, in the southern portion of the county, also were flooded.
All across the two counties, high winds and lightning knocked down electrical lines, causing 48,000 Commonwealth Edison customers in the area to lose power, said Kelly Martin, an Edison spokeswoman. By mid-afternoon, all but 6,000 of those residents had power restored, she said.
As bad as that was, the number of affected customers fell short of the 70,000 customers hit by outages during the June 7 storm that dumped 3 to 6 inches of rain on Chicago’s South Side, Du Page County and the south and southwest suburbs. A storm on June 17 left 80,000 customers groping in darkness.
So bad was the flooding early Wednesday that the Des Plaines River in Gurnee rose 4 feet in the first nine hours Wednesday, rising 18 inches above flood level, said David Moughton, a hydraulic engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Though Lake and McHenry Counties were hit hardest, municipalities along the Des Plaines River should prepare for possible flooding, warned David Moughton, a hydraulic engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“There was no flooding at the Des Plaines gauge (in Des Plaines) this morning, but with the forecast, there is a very strong possibility of flooding there tonight and tomorrow,” Moughton said.
Lake County health officials also issued a precaution Wednesday, telling residents that flood water might have contaminated their wells.
And as the soggy month of June slipped away Wednesday, Edison’s Martin may have summed up everyone’s feelings about the last 30 days:
“We’re happy to seeing June go. Goodbye.”
As the rains made lives miserable, people all across the two counties struggled to cope with the deluge:
Trapped, then safe
As the rains seeped into Mary Duben’s basement and lapped at the steps of her bungalow on the south side of Waukegan, she felt trapped.
Further terrifying the 74-year-old widow was the odor of natural gas wafting through her home, as the water apparently had snuffed out the pilot lights on her furnace and water heater.
In the predawn hours Wednesday, Duben had heard a loud rumble when the surging water from the swollen Waukegan River caved in a 10-foot section of her foundation, flooding her basement.
As she watched the rising waters helplessly, Duben phoned relatives for help.
Using a walker she has had since a recent knee operation, Duben was unable to navigate the nascent river outside.
But within minutes, her grandson Brian Smith arrived to lead her to safety.
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Back on terra firma, Duben hugged longtime neighbor Mary Slack and said, “What else can happen?”
Buoyant basement
When Baldemar Reyes rolled over in bed early Wednesday, his hand got wet.
In the basement of his home on Vine Street in Round Lake Beach, Reyes, 21, wiped the sleep from his eyes as he watched his 11-month-old daughter’s crib float by.
“I grabbed the VCR, and my wife reached into the crib to grab Samantha,” Reyes recalled from dry ground Wednesday afternoon.
Among the items floating in the sewage-tainted water was the $800 bed they had but one payment left on. They were grateful to be alive.
“I was afraid that if it had gotten any higher, she would have drowned,” said Anne Reyes, clutching her infant daughter.
What are they going to do?
“We don’t know. We’ll probably go to the shelter,” said Anne Reyes, referring to a temporary shelter set up for flood victims at Indian Hill School, 1920 N. Lotus Drive.
Deja vu
When the water receded from the lawns and streets of flood-prone North Libertyville Estates in Libertyville Township in April, Mel Lanz figured he had seen the worst of it.
But the homeowner was back filling sandbags Wednesday afternoon with his neighhbors, bracing for more rain. He knew the routine.
In late April, Edgar declared the region a disaster area after the river waters swamped the subdivision, which is built on a flood plain next to the swollen river.
“We’ll be bagging as much as we can,” said Lanz, 44.
Swimming, anyone?
To get to her job as a waitress at Poor Richard’s Pub and Eatery in Gurnee, Diane Dostica, 30, drove through water that was as high as the bottom of her car door.
As she gazed outside Wednesday afternoon, she contemplated the trip home:
“I hope the rains stop and the water recedes so I don’t have to swim home.”
Real challenge
For about 30 disabled children at a campground in Johnsburg, the storm provided a real-life test of evacuation procedures they learned during a fire drill earlier in the week.
The children, ages 4 to 10, were evacuated from 4 C’s Camp on the Fox River after about a foot of water poured into their cabin through the roof and door openings, counselors said.
“The water ran down a hill into the building and woke us up about 5 a.m.,” said camp counselor Barry Liss.
“The water was several inches above our ankles and was getting up to the light sockets, so we had to cut the power and evacuate.”
The campers, children from Chicago and the suburbs attending the camp under sponsorship of the Chicago Council for Physically Challenged Children, viewed the experience as an adventure.
“They were happy-nice and happy, especially when the fire department showed up,” Liss said. “They had done a fire drill yesterday, so it was good timing.”
Counselor Camiel Verhamme, 19, said the camp’s 26 staff members carried some children and pushed others in wheelchairs to a bus and ambulances.
They were taken to Johnsburg High School, where they turned a small gymnasium into an indoor campground, with Red Cross-supplied cots and other bedding on the floor. By mid-afternoon the 30 youths were lying on the cots for their nap after frolicking about the small and large gyms in wheelchairs or playing with school sports equipment.
Meanwhile, camp director Kelly Mirsky and 10 Red Cross officials coordinated shopping trips for food and set up a schedule of games and arts and crafts in the larger gym. Mirsky said it figured to be an overnight stay, because the staff and children do not expect to return to the camp until Thursday afternoon, provided there is no more heavy rainfall.
Goodbye, bridge
Homeowners in the Dutch Creek Woodlands subdivision of Johnsburg found themselves cut off from the main road after water current caused a bridge to collapse.
“I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Ed Hetterman, 38, who climbed a hill from his isolated back yard to get to Johnsburg Road.
“The storm sewers got clogged up and put 3 feet of water on James Way. A bunch of us helped one neighbor carry furniture out of 3 feet of water in his basement and put it into his garage. Then we helped village employees and contractors pump water out of the basement,” Hetterman said.
Hetterman, owner of Hetterman’s Johnsburg Tavern, said flooded-out homeowners spent much of the day “sitting around watching TV and partying.”
Meanwhile at his tavern at Johnsburg and Chapel Hill Roads, Carla Gibson, a manager, said several owners flooded property came in for carry out lunches.
“Some of them spent all morning pumping their basements out and helping neighbors, then they came in for a beer,” Gibson said.
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