No Estimate Yet on Elmhurst Flood Costs

The City of Elmhurst is still tabulating the cost of the mid-April storm that flooded many city streets and homes and led to DuPage County being declared a disaster area, and an update on the recovery efforts should be available by the next City Council meeting on May 6, the Chicago Tribune reports.

According to the paper, the threshold for public damages to receive Federal Emergency Management Agency relief funding is $3.16 million for the county and $17.6 million for the state; there is no specific threshold for whether DuPage will qualify for private property assistance to individuals.

Washington Street resident Jeff Byrd, whose home has flooded three times in four years, told the paper the recommendations offered by a committee of residents after the summer 2010 flooding were ignored, saying, “They didn't want to ask our opinions. … I feel like they wasted our time and they haven't really done anything to fix the problem.”

Byrd also told the paper he’d be in line if the City or FEMA offered to purchase flood-prone homes. "I'd be willing to sign up if I could walk away from all this.”

City Manager Jim Grabowski told the paper that although flood-control systems operated as planned and new ones, like the $6 million Elmhurst are in the works, no action between the summer 2010 floods and this month could have prevented the waters from rising.

"There's no plan in the world that can prepare for that," he told the paper. "It was one of those freaks of nature that unfortunately seem to be happening more frequently." He added that “anything is within the realm of possibility” for relieving future flooding.

Read the full story at the Chicago Tribune website.