East Dundee is in the midst of a public works project that officials hope will resolve flooding and erosion issues near Lions Park, which residents say have become progressively worse over the decades.
“I want to finally be able to go on vacation and not have to worry about flooding,” said neighbor Charity Drake, who lives with her husband, Chris, in the 100 block of Howard Avenue.
Chris Drake has lived in the house for 30 years, with Charity moving in after they married 20 years ago, she said. The property has had issues with standing water and minor home flooding after storms for those three decades, but the situation has become more serious in the last 10 years or so, she said.
“After big storms, we call our back yard Lake Drake,” Charity Drake said. “And we keep sandbags handy to keep water out of our house.”
Rainwater and erosion have altered the pitch of the Drakes’ lawn and neighboring lawns, leaving uneven and roller coaster-like ground. A gully has emerged between the Drakes’ yard and that of their neighbors in which sinkholes — some as deep as three feet — have formed, she said.
“We used to let kids cut through the yard to go to the park behind our house, but not anymore. There are sinkholes in the park land behind us, particularly after it rains. It’s dangerous,” said Drake, noting that the excess water has damaged their driveway, forced them to cut down a large tree and damaged their landscaping.
John Egan, the Drakes’ next-door neighbor, who has lived in his home for 20 years, said half of his yard and parts of other yards in the area have become de facto retention ponds for the village over the years.
To address the problem, East Dundee is building a stormwater detention facility as well as infiltration trenches and drywells on park land that officials believe will alleviate the flooding, Public Works Director Phil Cotter said.
In February, the village awarded a $515,000 construction contract to Schwartz Excavating and agreed to pay $48,500 to Gerald L. Heinz & Associates for engineering work, according to the village website.
Drake thanked East Dundee Village Board trustees Scott Kunze and Andy Sauder and former Trustee Sarah Brittin for their work in getting the village to address the situation.
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If the problems are not resolved with the village’s work — two previous attempts to fix the situation were unsuccessful — it will be difficult to sell their homes in the future, the property owners said.
Egan and the Drakes think what has been contributing to the problem, Egan said, is how water flows from new development uphill. In the ensuing years, new homes, apartments and a fire station have been built, causing water displacement when it rains.
The runoff brings all sorts of debris with it, including cigarette butts and vape pens, they said.
“It would be nice if what they are doing this time doesn’t flood our yards,” Egan said.
They also hope that once the work is done, they will be able to relandscape their lots without worrying about it being damaged again and that the village might consider assisting them in covering some of the costs, they said.
Egan and Drake said their homes are not in a floodplain, although Cotter said that floodplain maps dating back to the late 1960s or early 1970s shows that theirs and another 19 properties are in a flood-prone area.
As the FEMA website notes, mortgage lenders must require home loan borrowers to buy flood insurance if they are purchasing a home in a floodplain.
“We don’t know how many homes have flood insurance, and the decision to proceed through the letter of map amendment process falls solely on the homeowner,” Cotter said.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The (Elgin) Courier-News.