County to Oak Park: No Flood Aid

The Village of Oak Park has learned that residents whose homes were flooded during this July’s heavy rains won’t qualify for federal assistance.

Oak Park's not alone.   

Not a single Cook County community qualified for the aid because this year’s flooding didn’t match the damage that hit the area last year, according to a county disaster management official.

Earlier:

“The county did not have to enough damage to warrant a disaster declaration. And no individual community can qualify on its own. Disaster assistance is based on a countywide declaration,” said Bryan Johnson of the Cook County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. A declaration, he added, triggers the federal assistance.

To declare the county a disaster area, the damage from that event has to be significant.

Even though more rain fell over a particularly heavy two-day stretch this year — seven inches on July 23 and 24, according to the National Weather Service forecast office in Romeoville, compared to 6.43 over the same two-day period last year — last year's rains were more damaging.

Those 2010 storms overwhelmed sewer systems, forced evacuations of local homes and made some houses uninhabitable, Johnson said.

Rob Cole, assistant to village manager Tom Barwin, said he didn't want to downplay this year's storm damage, but last year's storms forced the closure of parts of the Eisenhower Expressway and shut down CTA Blue Line service, and it's that type of widespread damage that typically qualifies as a major disaster.

But local homeowners say they're already experiencing disasters. They're sharing stories on the Oak Parkers Focused on Fixing the Flooding/Sewers Facebook page.

Charlie Kohler said his home on the village's southwest side has been hit with flood damage from a few storms in the past two years. The way he sees its, there are three options: "surrendering" his basement, paying for pricey insurance or working with the village to address the problem.

To that end, village officials have pledged cooperation. While the full extent of Oak Park's plan won't be known until September, public works officials have said they plan to televise sewer pipes and distribute flood prevention information to residents.