As residents along the swollen Des Plaines and Fox Rivers watched the water slowly recede Tuesday, officials began preparing teams to survey the damage in eight Illinois counties.
“We need some hard numbers in terms of damages,” said Patti Thompson, spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.
The teams will begin surveying next week so that Gov. Rod Blagojevich can seek federal disaster relief, Thompson said.
Last week, the governor declared disaster areas in Cook, Lake, McHenry, Kane, DuPage, DeKalb, LaSalle and Grundy Counties.Meanwhile, local officials continued to watch the skies for more rain. Scattered thunderstorms are possible throughout the Chicago area on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. But those storms shouldn’t carry enough rain to make flooding worse, officials said.
“There was some rain up in Wisconsin yesterday,” said Glenn Westman, acting flood operations manager in Lake County. “It does not appear as if that has had any significant impact on the Fox River basin. The water level continues to recede at a very slow pace.”
On Tuesday, fewer than 50 Commonwealth Edison customers scattered throughout the northern suburbs remained without power. Since Thursday’s powerful storm, electricity has been restored to about 630,000 customers, according to ComEd.
In Chicago, the Department of Streets and Sanitation offered its latest damage tally: 5,749 reports of trees and limbs down; 345 traffic signals out; 193 light poles damaged; 332 wires down. Most of the problems have been fixed, the department said.
As the Fox River continues to recede, reports of flood damage in the northwest suburbs will continue to rise, said Don Bryant, director of the Kane County Office of Emergency Management.
Bryant said a damage assessment to support an application for a federal disaster declaration probably will take two weeks to complete.
As of Tuesday, 514 single-family homes sustained flood damage, as did 50 mobile homes, 15 apartments and 31 businesses. More than 80 residents required relocation assistance, Bryant said.
Two homes in South Elgin were rendered uninhabitable. More than 100 tetanus shots have been administered by the county Health Department.
On Wednesday evening, volunteers will visit the hardest-hit areas in northeastern Kane County to distribute well water test kits and cleanup kits from the Red Cross, Bryant said.
More than 40,000 sandbags and 250 tons of sand were distributed Thursday and Friday in Kane County during the height of the flooding.
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