No matter the weather, neighbors always neighborly
Flooding follows severe cold, winds in worst winter storm this season
By James Pluta

Perhaps it was that extra energy teenagers had during the two-week holiday
break — or maybe a sudden urge to give back to the community — but about a
dozen young Justice men rolled up their sleeves and volunteered to help
their neighbors and other residents brace for impending floodwaters this
past weekend.

And help they did, reported Village Clerk Kathleen Svoboda, who said she
didn’t know exactly how many heavy duty fabric bags the kindly “neighbor
boys” and a handful of village officials filled with sand, just that they
did it with little or no complaining.

The county estimated on Saturday that its emergency management crews
provided the supplies: a truckload of bags and some 15 tons of beach to
Justice, and similar shipments to Lyons, Willow Springs and Brookfield.

“We feared we were going over our (retention pond) banks,” said Svoboda
two days after the high water was at its worst. “We just wanted to be
prepared.”

She credited Deputy Public Works Director Kenneth White with not only
arranging to have the volunteer sandbaggers picked up and the bags
delivered to affected homes in various parts of town but with coordinating
the whole flood relief effort.

Although White declined comment on the week’s activities, Svoboda said the
“usual trouble areas” were impacted — 75th and Cork, 73rd Place, Roberts
Road, the adjoining Marion Drive and Thomas Street apartments and the
Courtyard of Justice townhomes on Daniel Drive, as well as 83rd and 85th
courts in the Wesley Fields subdivision.

“Most of the problems we had were pretty predictable, except flooding in
front and rear yards ... but this time around there was an unusual amount
of rain,” she said. “And with the snow and the frozen ground melting, it
was a bigger mess.”

Svoboda, who said one way of dealing with flooding is by improvements to
current detention ponds, said village photographer Jerry Mandrella
volunteered with sandbagging, as did Trustees Michael Murray and Ed Jurgel
and an off-duty police officer over the weekend.

In Lyons, Fire Chief Gordon Nord said there was also little out of the
ordinary for such a large rainfall and defrost at once, but he attributed
the backed up sewers and drainage problems to the leaves that also fell
late in the fall season.

“We flooded again on Circle Drive in the (Czech Terrace) Southview area
and Riverside Lawn,” he said, noting the village made sure the sand and
bags got to about 30 residents who needed them just like it always does
after such major rains. “This was very unusual.”

Both areas abut the Desplaines River, which was well above flood stage —
causing an evacuation request on the Riverside banks due to high water
that reached many people’s front and back steps.

Riverside Lawn, an unincorporated wooded residential area that lies along
39th Street west of Joliet on the Lyons side of the river, is so level
with the river that many of its yards appear to take on a lake appearance
during every major rainstorm.

Willow Springs also suffered the usual major storm and melt woes in the
former Santa Fe Speedway area — where several roads were shut down around
91st Street and Wolf Road to Orchard Street.

But unlike the last big flood earlier this year, Village Administrator
Bill Murray said Flagg Creek nearly overflowed its banks.

“It was high, to about the level of the bridge on Wolf (just north of
German Church Road),” he said, “so much so that we closed the street for a
while as a precaution.”

A few homeowners who met with the village because of unique flooding
problems they face were “seriously affected” by a grade change along the
creek that, with the water above stage, brought water fairly close to
their front doors.

“We always have problems cause our village is all on a flood plain,” he
said, adding the retention pond at the Cliffside townhome development
above the Old Willow parking lot near Archer and Willow Springs roads also
needed to be cleared of debris that clogged it up.

Murray said about the only way to solve the problems off 91st and Wolf is
to work with ComEd to improve the pitch of the land west of Orchard where
a utility easement exists.

Brookfield also had some homes jeopardized near the river and Salt Creek
in the South Hollywood section in the southeast quadrant of town near
First and Ogden avenues.

For part of the weekend, Arden Avenue was closed to traffic north of
Southview — with excessive standing water between Arden to just west of
McCormick Avenue near the Brookfield Zoo.

Weekend broadcast reports that the American Red Cross opened a shelter in
Lyons Township could not be confirmed, but few actual evacuations took
place anyway.