By Jeff Long, Emily S. Achenbaum and Ted Gregory
The Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — Across a waterlogged Chicago region, the rain eased for the first time in more than two days on Sunday, and forecasters predicted several days of drier weather ahead.
For Des Plaines Mayor Tony Arredia, any optimism that news brought was overshadowed by the prospect of hard work ahead for his flood-ravaged city.
“The cleanup will be just as tiring as waiting for the flood,” Arredia said Sunday in City Hall. “What people really need now is support.”
The word from the National Weather Service in Romeoville was the first good news some had heard in days in the wake of Chicago’s record rain.
“The rain is now coming to an end,” National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Mott said Sunday about 5:30 p.m. “And it’s supposed to be dry all week.”
But according to WGN-TV chief meteorologist Tom Skilling, showers are still possible Monday morning, especially near Lake Michigan.
The drier weather arrives as Chicago set one record for rainfall in a calendar day, 6.64 inches on Saturday, and approached setting a record for the amount of September rainfall -- in just the first two weeks of the month.
Through early Sunday evening, 12.61 inches of rain had fallen at O’Hare International Airport this month. The record September, in 1961, saw 14.17 inches the entire month.
This weekend’s rains alone were enough to cause widespread problems.
Most of the Bishop Ford Freeway from 95th Street to Interstate Highway 80 was closed by flooding, and officials did not expect it to open before the Monday morning commute.
Dozens of schools canceled Monday classes in flood-affected areas.
Swollen rivers and creeks spurred more than 1,000 voluntary evacuations across the Chicago region Sunday, triggering emergency declarations in half a dozen Illinois communities and all of Cook County.
A Chesterton, Ind., father and son died Sunday morning while trying to rescue a 10-year-old boy from being sucked into a 3-foot-wide culvert in a flooded drainage ditch behind a home of one of the men, officials said.
About 10:45 a.m., the men heard the boy screaming behind the home in the Westchester South subdivision, authorities said.
Mark Thanos, 48, and his father, John Thanos, 74, went into the water, part of a drainage ditch that feeds into the flooded Coffee Creek, authorities said.
“The boy was sucked through. He made it to the bank on the other side,” said Phyllis Kumar, a dispatcher at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. “The men, they got stuck.”
The boy’s parents took him to Porter Memorial Hospital in Valparaiso, Ind., to get checked out, she said. Fire Department divers recovered the bodies of the two men, who were pronounced dead at the scene, said Lt. John Jarka of the Chesterton Fire Department.
In the western suburbs, nearly 750 people were relocated Sunday from 11 apartment buildings along Salt Creek in Addison, some by boat, officials said.
About 100 homes were evacuated in Des Plaines, Arredia said.
Another 400 residents were removed from their homes in Riverside, where the Des Plaines River was expected to crest at 1 a.m. Monday at 10.2 feet -- well above the 7-foot flood stage.
“It may be several days before people can return to their homes,” Riverside Fire Chief Kevin Mulligan said.
Riverside firefighters knocked on the door of Gail Emond’s condominium at 5 a.m. Sunday and told her and her husband, Bart Dziekonski, to flee their home. By Sunday afternoon, the couple, their two cats and three neighbors were in motel rooms in Lyons, watching the Bears game.
The Des Plaines River had flooded into the basement windows of their condo, and the basement was submerged in water, Emond said Sunday afternoon.
“Can I have a beer?” she joked. “We’re just trying to stay calm. It’s hard, but what can you do? I’m sure other people have it worse.”
Evacuations were also carried out Sunday in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood along the Chicago River.
“I have never seen flooding like this,” said Babu Daniel, who has lived in the neighborhood for 10 years, as he walked through water up to his knees.
Jim LoBianco, managing deputy commissioner with the Chicago Department of Human Resources, said 38 people spent Saturday night at a makeshift shelter in the historic Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium building in North Park Village, less than 10 blocks away from the worst city flooding.
The evacuees included 11 senior citizens and a child -- plus three dogs and a cat.
“The city has made a concerted effort to allow people to relocate with their pets,” LoBianco said.
Shylo Bisnett, 29, who lives on North Avers Avenue near the flooded intersection with West Carmen Avenue, helped clear drains clogged with leaves.
Bisnett said the block of West Carmen that ends at the river had been flooded since about 3 p.m. Saturday. While the city began towing cars blocking drains, officials didn’t start sandbagging until Sunday morning, she said. Her neighbors, many with flooded basements, had been sandbagging all night, and she wished the city had started sooner, Bisnett said.
“They’ve been up all night, emptying their basements,” she said of her neighbors.
Also on Chicago’s Northwest Side, North Park University closed at least three residence halls Sunday after losing power to the buildings because of flooding.
The Christian college’s Anderson and Burgh Halls were closed Saturday and Sunday after power was lost, apparently caused by the flooding of the stretch of the Chicago River that borders the campus. Both halls were shuttered Saturday after the river began to cover electrical transformers that supply power to both halls. A university operator said Sunday night that power was also out at Sohlberg Hall.
Students were being relocated to Helwig Recreation Center or to the homes of friends and family. The university has about 3,100 students, according to its Web site.
On the east side of Addison, firefighters used boats Sunday morning to evacuate an 11-building apartment complex and two subdivisions along Salt Creek, village spokesman Don Weiss said.
The voluntary evacuations began about 5 a.m. An emergency shelter was set up at the recreation center at Centennial Park near Lake Street and Rohlwing Road, Weiss said.
The water level in Salt Creek was nearly 4 feet above flood stage at 11 a.m., Weiss said. That’s a little more than a foot below where the creek crested during significant flooding in 1987, he noted.
The evacuations were recommended by village officials for residents of The Villa Brook Apartments in the 100 block of South Villa Avenue and also the nearby Normandy Manor and Home Addition subdivisions. There are 242 single-family homes in the two subdivisions, but Weiss did not know how many of those were evacuated.
Kane County officials, meanwhile, said several residents in a townhouse complex in the Prestbury subdivision in Sugar Grove were relocated after water blocked their street. Eight residents from the complex took shelter in the Sugar Grove fire station, according to spokesman Tom Schlueter.
Janet Bishop, communications director with the Village of Glenview, said about 30 people stayed in a temporary Park District shelter Saturday night.
“We talked to residents and strongly encouraged them to evacuate,” she said.