Tony Schor pulled into the parking lot at his Deerfield office Thursday morning behind a flatbed truck carrying two kayaks.
“For anybody with a kayak, this wasn’t such a bad day,” he joked.
For everybody else in the northern suburbs, it was a slog. Rain fell hard and fast before and during the morning rush, swelling rivers, flooding roadways and slowing commutes from the North Shore to the suburbs that surround O’Hare International Airport.
“I’m not a road-rage person, but I almost lost it today,” said Debbie Glickman of Highland Park.
The journey from her home to a work appointment in Libertyville on Thursday afternoon — normally a 15-minute drive — took nearly two hours. She said she was stuck for more than an hour trying to get from one stoplight to another between flooded Westleigh and Old Elm roads in Lake Forest.
“It took my whole afternoon,” she said. “There was no way out.”
By 8:30 a.m. Thursday, more than 3 inches of rain had been reported in Lake Forest, Lake Bluff, Cary, Algonquin, Mundelein and Marengo.
The average rainfall for the entire month of May in the Chicago area is 3.38 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
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A flash flood warning expired across much of the area at noon Thursday, but was extended until 1 a.m. Friday for northwestern Cook County and Lake County, two areas that bore the brunt of flooding. Rain isn’t expected to hit Chicagoland again until Sunday night, said Bill Wilson, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chicago.
Metra briefly canceled Union Pacific/North Line service Thursday morning between Waukegan and Kenosha during the morning rush hour because of flash flooding north of Waukegan. Trains on other Metra lines had been running as much as 40 minutes late, but were mostly back to normal by 9:30 a.m.
In Lake Forest, at least four cars were trapped by water in an underpass at Westleigh Road and U.S. Highway 41. A number of homes in the community were also surrounded by water, officials said.
Deerfield High School closed for the day because of flooding and loss of electricity.
Along Park Drive in Mount Prospect, residents said they couldn’t drive down the street. “We are beside ourselves,” said Lori Naumowicz, who lives in the 1400 block of Park Drive. She said sewers were blocked and neighbors had called for help from police.
Traffic on the outbound Kennedy Expressway crawled at 10 mph through most of the morning rush.
Lake Cook Road was closed for more than six miles between Barrington and Algonquin. Roads also were reported flooded in Elmhurst, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Hoffman Estates, Lake Zurich and Gurnee, among other suburbs.
In Glencoe, low-lying areas south of South Avenue and west of Green Bay Road flooded, said Public Works Director David Mau. Work is under way there on a $1.6 million storm sewer project approved in 2008.
The project is designed for situations like Thursday’s, when rain fell faster than the sewers could handle it, Mau said.
By the afternoon, visibility improved and officials said delays at O’Hare and Midway airports were averaging about 30 minutes, an improvement over earlier in the day. More than 200 flights were canceled, according to the city’s Department of Aviation.
Dan Simmons is a Tribune reporter; Tara Tesimu is a TribLocal reporter. TribLocal reporter Jeff Danna also contributed.