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Approximately 20 residents showed up at the Oak Park village board meeting on Monday, hoping to vent their frustrations after recent heavy rains swamped their basements.
They say basement flooding has become a frequent occurrence in Oak Park, particularly after the latest round of rainstorms last week. As a result, residents have formed a Facebook group, called “Oak Parkers Focused on Fixing the Flooding/Sewers,” to organize and seek out answers. Already, some 170 people have signed up.
Angela Spinillo said flooding is becoming increasingly common, and the effects are numerous — damaged property, lost valuables, health concerns and increasing insurance premiums.
“Putting the majority of the onus for this now-chronic sewer backup flooding on homeowners is ineffective and irresponsible,” she told trustees during public comment at a meeting Monday.
Charlene Jones Foster, of the 1000 block of North Lombard, demanded to know when the ongoing flood problem would be addressed, hoping that it would be in the next few weeks.
“We’ve lost quite a bit of precious things that cannot be replaced with money,” she told trustees.
A three-hour rainstorm during the late hours of July 21 dropped about 4.3 inches of rain on Oak Park, according to Village Engineer Jim Budrick. Following that rainfall, at least 163 homes around the village experienced basement flooding, according to village data.
The hardest-hit area was northeast Oak Park, which Public Works Director John Wielebnicki said is because the ground level is lower in that section of the community. Officials maintained that the frequent flooding is because of regional capacity issues in the water system, and not specific problems with underground infrastructure in Oak Park. Plus, the village has seen an usually high number of severe storms in recent years, unlike anything since at least the 1980s, Budrick said.
The Cook County Department of Homeland Security and the village are asking residents who incurred flood damage at their homes to fill out surveys, with a deadline looming on Thursday, Aug. 4. The three-page questionnaire, which will help officials determine who is eligible for public assistance, is posted on the village’s website, oak-park.us.
Wielebnicki and Budrick spent over an hour Monday night answering questions and explaining the sewer situation to a crowd of about 25 people. Spinillo said she wished the village was quicker to get info up on its website, as the flooding survey wasn’t released till a week or so after the heavy storm.
“It took seven days for something to get on the village’s website that the flooding even occurred,” Spinillo said.
Budrick said the “bones” of the underground infrastructure date back to the 1930s. Oak Park plans to send cameras through the pipes in the near future, he said, hoping to seek out any blockage or other problems.
Village staff plans to compile a report on the recent wave of flooding to present to the village board in September. Oak Parker Eric Davis hoped the village could use its plan to tap into grant dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.