Chicago/NW Indiana Flood of 2008

[Broomstick]

I've decided to start this as a separate thread. The greater Chicago area saw record rains over the weekend and as a result has some pretty impressive flooding.

Ironically, this location is on River Road:


Granted, most of the flooding is "only" knee to waist deep, but that's more than enough to cause major, major problems.


Rescue crews are having to fetch people who went to bed dry and woke up flooded. One family in my area went to the grocery store and when they tried to return home a half an hour later their home was flooded and the roads impassable.

This gas station is on Lake Street - really, the irony around here is incredible:


O'Hare Airport stayed open despite standing water on the runways:


There was also water in the lower levels of the airport complex:



Access to the big airport was also problematic - not only were the roads under water, but note that the train in the right background isn't very dry either:


From inside one of the shuttle vans going through the water:


The sign is sort of redundant at this point:


Interstate flooding - this is one of the many sections of I-94 shut down due to water:


Everyone in these vehicles got out safely, but more I-94 fooding:

[Broomstick]

The City of Chicago, being so big, tends to get the most press, but Northwest Indiana also got hit hard. The national guard has been called out.

Right now, they're the only ones who have vehicles capable of getting through a lot of the area, and in a number of places they're using boats, too.

This couple was evacuated from Griffith yesterday. This is only a few blocks from where I live, in a neighborhood still recovering from the August 5 tornado:


More from Griffith:


View from above in Munster:


This link takes you to an article with a short video about Munster, Indiana (I apologize in advance for the commercial they force you to watch first).

From Merrillville, just south of me:


The area is low-lying and prone to flooding. One of the flood control measures in the area involves NOT building homes or businesses in certain areas which are intended to flood, basically giving the water somewhere to go. This is Wicker Park, which is one such location:

As you can see, it flooded as intended, but the water dropped by the recent storms exceeded its capacity. (When not flooded, these areas are used as parks and recreation areas - this is normally used as a public golf course when not flooded).

The Deep Tunnel Project, which is designed to drain off and contain storm water, was 99% full as of yesterday morning. In other words, the sewers and drainage systems are full, and that's why we have the floods, there is simply nowhere left for the water to go.

We're above water here, but what you see in the pictures is what's all around me - I do have to run a few errands today and I am not looking forward to it, as it will be one detour after another and there may be some areas that are simply impassable by road.

[Covenant]

Big sections of where I live got flooded, and obviously my connections to I-94 were pretty much tanked, but I had a bunch of water pumps set up to push the stuff out into the street for the past few days, so it never got more than a few inches high outside, which was never quite enough to overtop my foundations. Sump pump was working well too, or else there would have been significant basement flooding. Those are some pretty sad pictures, it's not like we're not used to flooding up here, it's just hard to deal with. Where do you put all the water when there's nowhere left to dump it? We can't all live on hills.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Damn, that hugging couple is a TIME magazine cover if I ever saw one.

[Broomstick]

I was supposed to get a signature on some papers for the state and fax it off today, but I called them and pointed out I was in the middle of the flooding, I physically couldn't get to the guy who needed to sign the papers because every single road to his house was underwater and he was running four sump pumps to remove what was getting past the sandbags around his home, so could I please have an extension, thankyouverymuch? Got one. Thank goodness.

Then it was off to try to get groceries - we were out of milk and running low on foods with protein. All I can say is that it's a good thing I'm familiar with most of the roads and alternate routes around here, and that I took the truck. My car would not have gotten through some spots - the emergency crews had marked out safe paths though some routes that only had a little standing water ("little" being nearly bumper deep on my pickup - one spot they weren't letting cars through, only trucks and SUV's) but other spots the roads were washed out and/or the bridges were being inspected for soundness.

When I left the house gas was $0.75 more expensive than last Thursday. By the time I drove back today it was another nickel higher.

What a fucking mess.

[Adrian Laguna]

I didn't know there could be such severe flooding in the Greater Chicago area. In my neighbourhood there where just larger puddles than usual. Funny, earlier today I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone and he told me he'd heard Chicago had gotten some pretty bad weather, to which I replied, "Nah, just a little rain." That's rather ironic in light of this.

[Broomstick]

Mother nature likes to remind us once in awhile that this place really did use to be a swamp.

[Broomstick]

From the New York Times - apparently it wasn't just the Chicago area affected by this.

Big Storms Are Taking Heavy Toll on Midwest

ST. LOUIS — Communities across the Midwest were reeling Monday after heavy weekend storms across the region left at least 17 people dead, more than two million homes and businesses without power, and scores of roadways flooded.

The storm, which combined remnants of Hurricane Ike with a slow-moving front in a wave of low pressure, produced wind gusts of up to 81 miles per hour, spurred five tornadoes in Michigan and dumped 4 to 10 inches of water on parts of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

Accumulated rainfall forced at least 200 Illinois residents into temporary shelters, and on Monday Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich declared seven counties in the northeastern portion of the state disaster areas.

“We haven’t been able to conduct much damage assessment yet, we’ve mostly been in response mode,” said Patti Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. “There’s been flash flooding in several parts of the state, especially in Chicago and the collar counties.”

The storm produced little rain in Ohio, but its sustained winds of more than 40 m.p.h. snapped trees and power lines, leaving 1.9 million customers without power. The storm is also being blamed for five deaths in that state, including that of a woman who died when a tree struck her home, said Tamara McBride, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.

Indiana was also hard hit, with rains swelling rivers and winds damaging trees and buildings. On Monday, 150,000 people remained without power there, and a portion of Interstate 80/94 on the Indiana-Illinois border remained partly closed.

“There have been so many local roads closed due to flooding that it would be very difficult to catalog,” said John Erickson, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Erickson said the state was still assessing the storm’s damage. “We’re taking a look at that right now, but we have to wait for the floodwaters to recede,” he said.

The storm is blamed for six deaths in Indiana, Mr. Erickson said, including those of two adults who died after rescuing an infant from a culvert.

In Missouri, which like other Midwestern states had already been hit hard by flooding this summer, officials blamed the storm for four deaths. Floodwaters shut down more than 40 state and county roads and left an estimated 100,000 people without power on Sunday.

By Monday evening, 25,000 customers remained without power in St. Louis and southeastern Missouri, said a spokesman for the local utility, AmerenUE.

Officials said there could be still more problems.

“We’ve seen a lot of flash flooding down streams and gullies,” said Duane Nichols, deputy director for the state’s emergency management agency. “We don’t know where this is going to end up because some of the rivers aren’t scheduled to crest until later this week.”

After pummeling the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Ike was downgraded to a tropical depression as it moved north toward Canada and combined with the slow-moving front to produce torrential rains and sustained winds of more than 40 m.p.h., said Daniel Cobb of the National Weather Service.

While several fatalities associated with the storm were due to drowning, falling limbs and whole trees that snapped in the storm have also taken a heavy toll. Falling trees were blamed for four of the deaths in Indiana. At least two people in Ohio were similarly killed, as was a suburban St. Louis woman when she stepped outside her house to look at the storm.

“They’re all dealing with fallen trees,” Mr. Erickson said. “In one case a person was killed after a tree fell on their car. It just shows you how severe the winds have been. It’s really incredible.”

Of course, this sort of disaster can be spotty and patchy - just as an example, people 3 or 4 blocks from me were taken out of their flooded houses by boat, my street stayed above water, and Adrian got "just a little rain".

Sounds like everything from the Ohio Valley to the Mississippi and a little west of that got hammered last weekend.

[Broomstick]

Toll collecting has been suspended on portions of the Indiana Toll Road in order to move traffic through faster. Right now, it's the only open highway from my area into and out of Chicago. In fact, Indiana has about 258 km of highway closed due to flooding even today, and today is an improvement over yesterday.

Specifically, this is the highway problem:

That's Interstate 94 at Kennedy Avenue in Hammond, Indiana. This is from today - yesterday the highway median was also completely under water.

This is Munster, Indiana.

Yesterday there were a couple of house fires in the flood zone which were hell to put out because the trucks couldn't get through the water and the firefighters had to stretch hoses across several flooded blocks before they could get to the fire.

If you've never been in a flood you may not appreciate the stench left behind. This is from the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago, but parts of my area don't smell too good either:

I'd rather not imagine what some place like post-Katrina New Orleans or the current situation in Texas and the Gulf Coast is like, as they probably have dead wildlife and bodies in their flood zones.

This is Hammond, Indiana


There's been an epidemic of displaced wildlife, too, as animal burrows and dens were flooded out and the animals took refuge where they could

I suppose I should be grateful all we got were a few mice in the building, as opposed to skunks.

[Broomstick]

The problem isn't over for some residents - as the water drains off it fills up rivers, which can then overtop their banks and cause new floods. I live right on the Griffith/Gary border - the area referred to below is near where I live. Cline avenue is slightly elevated, so they're hoping it stays open as it is one of only two remaining roads passable between the north and south parts of the county. The other road is "passable", but only one lane is open each direction and there's standing water on it so it, too, may or may not stay open.

From The Northwest Indiana Times:

GRIFFITH | Town officials are asking residents on the north end of Griffith near Cline Avenue and River Road to be prepared to evacuate, if water levels continue to rise.

The Little Calumet River is flowing east, dumping water onto the Griffith Golf Center. The water level is four feet below the top of a levee there, but water is quickly rising, Town Council President Rick Ryfa said.

The National Guard is delivering sandbags to the area, and the Army Corps of Engineers is monitoring the water level, Ryfa said.

Town officials are going door-to-door, letting residents know that evacuation is a possibility. The area is mostly industrial but also turns into apartments and town houses, he said.

Ryfa said the town should have a better handle on the situation by 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

"As a precaution, all residents and businesses need to be prepared to evacuate quickly if called upon," he said. "We are prepared to do it if the water increase is high."

Also, the NWI Times reported that mail delivery to several zip codes has been suspended due to impassable roads. So that explains why I haven't even gotten junk mail this week. We can pick up our mail at the post office itself, I guess the semi-trucks have been able to get through even if the little delivery jeeps haven't.

[Adrian Laguna]

Mother nature likes to remind us once in awhile that this place really did use to be a swamp.

Well, in my particular area I think the hand of man is behind the lack of flooding. My neighbourhood was settled some time in the later 19th century, they probably added landfill before building the houses to avoid the problems that necessitated the raising of downtown.

Of course, this sort of disaster can be spotty and patchy - just as an example, people 3 or 4 blocks from me were taken out of their flooded houses by boat, my street stayed above water, and Adrian got "just a little rain".

Well it did rain for two days straight, it's just that most of it was light and gentle, such that when I left a store I didn't bother open my umbrella until I was across the street. Since I lived for several years in South Florida, nothing short of endless hard driving rain really makes an impression on me. Well, a short burst of extremely violent rainfall can impress me too. When I visited St. Louis I got to experience a rainstorm so fierce that there was water running through the streets within two minutes, I found that rather remarkable.

[Broomstick]

Mother nature likes to remind us once in awhile that this place really did use to be a swamp.

Well, in my particular area I think the hand of man is behind the lack of flooding. My neighbourhood was settled some time in the later 19th century, they probably added landfill before building the houses to avoid the problems that necessitated the raising of downtown.

Either that, or they were smart enough to build on higher ground. I live in one of the older buildings around here, and it seems no coincidence that the older buildings tend to flood less, and buildings put up in the last couple decades flood more. The later construction was done on less appealing land, in some cases land that was known to flood once in awhile.

[Broomstick]

I-94 through Lake and Porter counties is closed for the 4th day in a row.

The problem is that there is nowhere for the water to go - the storm sewers are full, the rivers are full... actually, the rivers in the northern portion of the area have crested and started to go down, but slowly.

Yesterday the rivers in Ottawa and Morris, Illinois got their load of run-off water and jumped their banks, leading to hundreds more being evacuated from flooded homes. At least the authorities had some idea it was coming and got the people out but you can't move buildings.

Sandbags don't always work - here they're holding back floodwaters, but not the water is coming up through the pavement, from below. Water really is an amazing substance, and surprisingly forceful.


Hobart, Indiana

[Broomstick]

Unconfirmed, but today I heard that the water level of lake Michigan went up by 5 cm.

OK, that doesn't sound like much, but when you consider how big Lake Michigan is, that's huge.

[Questor]

Unconfirmed, but today I heard that the water level of lake Michigan went up by 5 cm.

OK, that doesn't sound like much, but when you consider how big Lake Michigan is, that's huge.

Did I do my math wrong, or is that 2.9E12 liters?

I converted surface area of 58,000 sq. km. to 5.8E14 sq. cm., then multiplied by five.

that gave me 2.9E15 cu. cm. which is 2.9E15 milliliters.

That is a truly massive amount of water! Is there surge into Lake Huron?

[Broomstick]

I have no idea if there was a surge into Lake Huron, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Meanwhile, we now have exploding houses:

MUNSTER | A gas explosion obliterated an evacuated home Wednesday night on Munster's deluged north side, shaking the region with a resounding thump heard miles away.

"It was like a massive Roman candle," neighborhood resident and witness Mark Steinken said.

"You could feel the shock wave," he said.

Firefighters found no one hurt in or near the flattened, burning pile of timbers that remained of the house in the 7900 block of Monroe Street after the blast about 7:20 p.m., Town Manager Thomas DeGiulio said. That home's occupant was accounted for after the explosion, DeGiulio said.

The explosion lit fire to two neighboring homes, both also empty because of the mandatory evacuation in the neighborhood just south of the Little Calumet River, DeGiulio said.

NIPSCO crews cut gas to many homes after the river spilled 3 feet of water into the neighborhood over the weekend, DeGiulio said. But gas continued to flow to some houses.

"They can't get to the gas. They can't find the meters because they're so deep underwater," DeGiulio said.

NIPSCO workers and firefighters were cutting off gas and power to many neighborhood homes after the explosion, DeGiulio said.

"This only reinforces why we don't want people going back into these houses," DeGiulio said.

DeGiulio was waiting in Munster Town Hall for a phone call with homeland security officials when the home blew, he said.

"It shook the building," DeGiulio said.

The echoing blast brought neighbors streaming out of homes and businesses, and the fire, emergency response and cleanup turned into a neighborhood event. Hundreds of people gathered at Broadmoor Avenue and Monroe Street to watch firefighters wade into 3 feet of water. The closest firetruck only could pull within 600 feet of the house, so firefighters hooked three 200 foot hoses together, a fireman said.

"I live over on Hohman, and it rocked my house," Eric Bohling said.

Steinken described a "sickening feeling" after he heard the explosion and saw a mushroom cloud of burning wood rising above the trees. Residents are weary.

"This has been one misery after the other," Steinken said.

Jim Flener, a neighbor to the exploded home, felt power and gas should have been cut to all homes before the blast.

"It could have been me down there," he said.

A NIPSCO spokesman said late Wednesday that crews are investigating, but he could not comment specifically on the circumstances surrounding the blast.

Meanwhile, over in my neck of the woods.... the parts of Griffith that were evacuated are to the west of where I live. The town of Merrillville and its flooding are to the south. The submerged interstate, I-94, is to my north. The part of Gary mentioned in the following article, Glen Park, is to my east. See, I am surrounded by this. Glen Park is also where I've been working most of the summer painting houses. I suppose it's just as well I'm laid up with a bad leg this week, as I clearly would not be painting while standing in a boat, but it makes me wonder about future employment. It also illustrates that this is a continuing problem, as the water doesn't disappear but does shift around. These people were dry a couple days ago, now they're flooded. The crisis isn't over yet.

Dozens of people were forced from their homes in Gary's Glen Park neighborhood Wednesday morning as floodwaters deepened.

Floodwater from heavy weekend rains has overwhelmed some sewers, and the excess water can't flow into the Little Calumet River as it usually would, said Imad N. Samara, project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Firefighters in boats picked up about 35 people from homes along 33rd Avenue between Broadway and Georgia Street just south of the river Wednesday, said Gary city spokeswoman LaLosa Burns. Mayor Rudy Clay ordered the evacuation after surveying the neighborhood between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., Burns said.

Evacuees were taken to the Hudson Campbell Fitness Center downtown for shelter, Burns said.

Firefighters were working Wednesday within the city's controversial new hour restrictions, but resident safety will trump budgetary problems, Burns said.

"We do not stop to necessarily take a look at the budget. We simply are concerned with the heath, safety and welfare of citizens first," Burns said.

The city and the Gary firefighters' union have sparred in recent weeks regarding moves by the city to reduce shifts and staffing on fire rigs.

Anthony Nicks had watched the water creep toward his street since Sunday. Neighbors -- holding everything from babies to bags -- started leaving the neighborhood Tuesday, said Nicks, who has lived on the 3300 block of Georgia for 12 years.

If the water flows down the remaining dry yards of road leading to his house, Nicks will leave as well, he said.

"It's never been this bad," he said.

[Broomstick]

See this quarry? (It's the Thornton quarry - the road going through/above it is Interstate 80)


Here's an overhead view:


It's 2.5 km long, 1 km wide, and 125 m deep. It has the capacity to hold 14,006,023,601 liters. (3.7 billion gallons US)

It is now full. Sorry, I couldn't get the picture to display here, click on the link

Yep, right up to the bottom of the road bed on that bridge. It's full of water, run off from last weekend.

It took only 72 hours to fill the quarry.

It will take at least 35 days to empty it - assuming there is no more rain that needs to be diverted.

We still don't have enough places to put the water that is still standing in the streets.

And, of course, the businesses that actually quarry in the quarry are now shut down until the water is removed.

[Broomstick]

Oh, and I found an appropriate "theme" song for this week: A very young Johnny Cash sings "Five Feet High and Rising"

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Christ, I drove over that repeatedly while living in Illinois last year, since my savings accounts were with KeyBank, and they didn't have any branches in Illinois so I had to drive to either South Bend or else this po-dunk town down elsewhere, depending on conditions. Also when going from Chicago to Atlanta once, the second time we went south through Illinois. It was one of the more surreal driving experiences I've remembered.


Uhm, wow.