More rain, more floods, more often
Why wet basements and swollen rivers are becoming the new spring reality for Illinois
The record-setting spring rains that pummeled the Chicago region this May overwhelmed northern Illinois rivers, knocked out power to Willis Tower, filled Lake Michigan to the brim and forced thousands of residents to tackle soaked basements, muckcovered yards and damaged foundations.
Flooding has become a front-and-center issue in Illinois in recent years, with concerns stretching from
Chicago and its suburbs to the sparsely populated farmland near Cairo at the southern tip of the state.
This May already is the wettest in Chicago on record, the third year in a row that May has set new precipitation records. The record rains are a stark reminder that Illinois is experiencing more frequent drenching downpours.
The changing climate, plus more development across the Chicago region, has altered the landscape of what areas are considered flood-prone.
“It’s driving me nuts that climate change has become a dirty word, that climate change has become so political,” said Paul Osman, chief of statewide floodplain programs for the Illinois Office of Water Resources. “It’s science. It’s data. It’s happening, I’m sorry. You can’t argue with thermometers, rain gauges or river gauges. They are all increasing every single year.”
Urban flooding in particular, according to the state water resources office, caused more than $2 billion in damages in the state between 2007 and 2014. Of that damage, more than 90% of claims occurred outside mapped floodplains.
“You have these floodcausing, localized events where water comes into every basement, leaving them underwater,” Osman said, “Where two blocks away, it’s high and dry.”
Floodplains in the crosshairs
When storms dump multiple inches over a matter of hours, stormwater and drainage systems designed for the rainfall amounts of 50 years ago cannot keep pace, leading to submerged basements and viaducts full of standing water. Rivers and streams cannot contain the deluge of water that falls in such a short amount of time, and as the water rises, it spills out into the surrounding land, soaking homes, businesses and farmland.
This phenomenon has been fully on display in areas of the city and suburbs in recent days, especially in Des Plaines, where the namesake river flooded major intersections near downtown and nearby neighborhoods.
Charlie Eck, 55, lives in the family home just off the river on Woodland Avenue, where townhouses and freestanding homes, big and small, are situated near the river’s western bank.
Eck’s father and four brothers grew up living along the river since the mid-1920s. His dad later had the home on Woodland Avenue built in 1955 and owned it until his death, passing it on to his son.
“I’ve been fighting this thing since ’86,” Eck said in the yard outside his home near Sesquicentennial Park.
Eck says he has never owned flood insurance, opting to forgo a policy because flooding was rarely serious and he had taken precautions, such as filling in the basement and keeping any sandbags or pumping equipment around.
A property owner is only required to buy flood insurance if their home or business is within a mapped floodplain and they have a federally backed loan. Others outside designated floodplains can purchase flood insurance but are not required to have it.
In the past, Eck said he thought the benefits of living along the river outweighed the troubles. In the summers, he could fish with buddies or relatives, or enjoy a drink at an outside bar he built a short distance from the river bank.
At the first sign of trouble, his “army” of friends who also lived along the river sprang into action with sandbags and pumps to handle any flooding.
But now with the lifelong laborer considering retirement and many of his old friends moving away, he is considering selling his home and moving on.
“The past three years in May have been devastating,” he said.
Eck, who was married at the property, says he no longer has the energy to keep up with the demands of an increasingly volatile river.
“I used to have all my friends come. My friends are all getting older and moving away. We’re not 25 years old anymore,” he said. “My body’s beat up.”
‘We are taking a risk’
Scientists studying the increased rainfall across Illinois
released a new report on the state’s precipitation trends this March. The new standards, now referred to as Bulletin 75, from scientists with the Illinois State Water Survey, in coordination with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ Office of Water Resources, sketch out in detail rainfall trends and amounts over time, underscoring how this month’s rains, and those that caused widespread flooding in the Mississippi River valley a year ago, are becoming the new normal.
The fresh report, complete with detailed rainfall data from more than 700 stations across Illinois and the Midwest, and charts and maps showing how much more precipitation Illinois has received in recent years, is leading to a change in the way the 1% annual chance of flooding is being calculated.
The report will eventually change the definition of floodplains across the state and alter the way local governments make decisions on whether to allow development near waterways.
In the meantime, federal, state and local officials have been offering buyouts to property owners in an effort to avoid repetitive loss, or repeat flood claims. In Des Plaines, where portions of town were again underwater after the storms this week, the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have purchased dozens of houses, most of them in the picturesque but frequently flooded Big Bend area, a cluster of homes surrounded on three sides by a turn in the river.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has purchased 11 properties, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency 33 and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District 45 in recent years. Earlier this year, FEMA awarded a $2.3 million grant to Des Plaines for the acquisition of 13 more flood-prone homes. Des Plaines officials said 68 properties in the city have been purchased in recent years, 95% of those in the Big Bend area. Two more rounds of buyouts are scheduled to begin soon.
The goal of buyouts, authorities said, is to clear flood-prone areas of development that have been suffering costly, repeat flooding that triggers insurance claims. Illinois has a statewide regulation that if an existing structure has suffered damage past 50% of its market value — even cumulatively over several events — the owner is either required to raze the structure or accept a buyout.
The rule is in place to prevent taxpayers from funding repeat flood claims.
Susila Subramanian, who has lived on Big Bend Road for decades, is grateful recent flooding left only minor leaks in her basement. During the years she and her husband have lived on Big Bend, their home has flooded four times, destroying thousands of dollars of items in the process.
Flood insurance rates have also risen from about $300 a year in 1984 to about $2,500 now, she said.
She can recall the floods: 1986, 1987, 2007 and 2013. “Every time, we just lost the whole basement.”
“We had a really big-time flood up to the ceiling of our finished basement,” Subramanian said. “We finished it again and again the next couple of times, but now we just leave it unfinished.”
The vast majority of her neighbors have taken the
FEMA buyout and moved on. She can remember when the homes along the curving road near Big Bend Lake were filled with family homes.
“Most of our neighbors have gone. We used to host beautiful block parties,” she said.
Her husband has remained enamored with the two-story home where they raised their children and made numerous improvements over the years. “Because of the backyard, because it’s so … the river and forest preserve. Nobody is here; it’s quiet.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. The city is asking us to sell it to them, but my husband just loves the area. But at the same time we are taking a risk.”
The recent flooding has Subramanian daydreaming of living at a higher altitude.
“I just want to go into a high-rise condo way up with no basement,” she said.
An uphill struggle
Buyouts, officials said, can only go so far. Even if land near waterways is slowly returned to a natural state, it may not be enough to keep up with the changing precipitation patterns.
And if communities allow for building elsewhere in floodplains, even with special permits, overall progress against future flooding may be elusive.
With federal and statewide officials often hamstrung by politics or bureaucracy, local communities are left to craft regulations and policies for themselves: ones that are designed to halt floodplain development, encourage green space or urge responsible stewardship by those who do live or own property close to rivers, streams and waterways. Municipalities can also push for new mapping, using the latest digital and 3D technology to replace decades-old maps.
Osman held up Ottawa, Illinois, at the confluence of the Fox and Illinois rivers southwest of Chicago, as a beacon for proactive measures in the 21st century climate. There, frequently flooded neighborhoods were turned into green spaces and city parks. So this week, as the Illinois swelled to major flood stage, the flooded areas are playgrounds and open space, not houses and a school.
But flood designation or not, homeowners and renters often have to advocate for themselves.
In west suburban Lyons, Maria Quintero had to be rescued from her flooded townhome by boat. Quintero, who moved in only a few weeks ago, said she did not have renters or flood insurance. Her kitchen table is likely ruined, and the drywall and carpeting in her place are damaged. As the water began to rise, Quintero was able to save her grandmother’s antique clock and a cherished photograph of her.
Quintero and her two children are now staying with family, considering next steps.
“They’re going to fix it,” Quintero said, referring to her landlord. “But it’s gonna happen again, I know it.”
More floods, fewer insured
While flood-causing rains are becoming more frequent, the number of property owners who have flood insurance in Illinois has fallen.
For most of his 30-year career, Osman said there were about 50,000 flood insurance policies in Illinois. Now, that number has dropped to about 38,000. Osman said he is stumped by the reason for the drop, but he suspects it may be a combination of elderly homeowners in floodplains who have paid off their mortgage and did not continue to pay for the protection after their requirement expired, and lower-income owners who cannot afford policies and have slipped past the eyes of lenders and regulators.
At the same time, the price of flood insurance premiums has doubled in recent years, due in part to increased flooding and the National Flood Insurance Program receiving more and more claims, without money to fund them, Osman said.
Despite all of the flooding across Illinois in recent years, including widespread disaster areas as a result of Mississippi and Illinois river flooding in 2019, Illinois remains what Osman calls a “donor” state for other states across the nation, essentially paying the claims of states that have flooded even more frequently, such as the Gulf Coast areas of Texas and Louisiana.
As for maps, they are constantly changing. The map updating process is the result of a byzantine system involving studies and reviews through a FEMA process that involves a buffet of state and regional entities. It can take years for sections of maps to be updated using new rainfall data, fresh imagery and new information about an area.
Engineers and planners rely on the maps to better understand and assess the flood risks in communities. But property owners are often wary that remapping will place their home or business within a floodplain for the first time, requiring them to buy flood insurance they may not be able to afford.
“It’s a very slow ship to turn when it comes to mapping,” said Joanna Colletti, water resources manager with the McHenry County department of planning and development. Remapping, Colletti said, “can be pretty political.”
Some maps used as the basis for floodplains, floodplain development and flood insurance requirements in McHenry County, for instance, are 40 years old.
“A lot of them are accessible,” Coletti said. “Many of them are not.”
Others have been updated recently, either at the request of property owners or the government.
As the maps change with better technology, the fact that the area is receiving more rain more often means more property owners may be at risk for flooding than in the past. It may no longer be sufficient to clear out riverfront areas, even if residents are willing to leave.
And the decision to move on in the face of more frequent flooding is far from easy.
“If I was smart, I would just say goodbye,” said Eck, one of the Des Plaines residents. “Take my loss and go to Wisconsin or someplace. But I’m not moving by a river. I’ll live by a lake if I can afford it. A lake don’t go up like this.
“My cousin took the FEMA buyout,” Eck said. “Seeing as he was 10 years older than me, he couldn’t fight it anymore.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. The city is asking us to sell it to them, but my husband just loves the area. But at the same time we are taking a risk . ... I just want to go into a high-rise condo way up with no basement.” — Susila Subramanian, who has lived on Big Bend Road for decades. During the years she and her husband have lived there, their home has flooded four times, destroying thousands of dollars of items in the process