Despite a serious drought over the summer months with record low lake levels it is spring which means flooding in the plain states. Rivers filled with water, the Mississippi rose ten feet in one day, and the ground is frozen which means more run off. Spring often brings flash floods which Chicago residents are all too familiar with. The storm drain system in Chicago is combined with the sewer system and often leads to messy backups. There are a few things that can be done to protect your home but for Chicago residents the biggest help will be the new drainage system, but it won’t be ready until 2029.
After a frighteningly dry summer, record-low lake levels over the winter and a near shut-down of the Mississippi river due to low waters, it’s flood season. This week there were flood warnings in Lake County to the north of Chicago and in parts of the Illinois River to the west, and numerous rivers and streams hit flood or near-flood levels near the Quad Cities, Cairo and St. Louis.
The sudden flooding may be hard to absorb, but it’s a fact of living in a floodplain state. Illinois’ low lands and abundant rivers mean many parts of the state are liable to flood on a yearly basis, and the Chicago area’s history is marked by almost countless catastrophic floods.
So, is anything special about this year’s flood warnings? Well, yes and no.
“Typically, our flood season for the larger rivers is in the early spring,” said Bill Morris, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service. But this year, he said, areas north of Chicago had a frost depth down to ten inches during the melt and precipitation. “So when we had additional rainfall…that water basically hit a solid surface and just started running off into the streams.” . . . Continue Reading
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