Sentiment shifts to flood committee

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By Diane Strand Former DeKalb Mayor Bessie Chronopoulos was worried about &#8220a culture of What's another couple of feet?” She was talking about flooding. Chronopoulos told the City Council several months ago that expansion of the Tyler Elementary School parking lot was going to present a water problem because there wasn't anyplace left for the water to go on that site. &#8220And I have never, ever, seen Annie Glidden flood! &#8220 Chronopoulos said, wondering if new developments on the south side were causing the problem. Like many others, she was surprised that all the retention areas within subdivisions and shopping areas weren't more helpful in reducing flooding. Rick Monas, chief of public works for DeKalb, said, &#8220With the levee having been built in the 1950s, and given the amount of rain we had in that amount of time, there's nothing else we could have done. Mother Nature was (in charge).” Nevertheless, the city is &#8220resuscitating” an old flood committee to help address the problem, and Chronopoulos suggested, &#8220You need some people in flood-prone areas on the committee - the noisy ones who want to get something done”. She said she would pass on some names to her alderman. Gilbert Sebenste, NIU meteorologist, made some important calls early, or the disaster could have been a lot more severe. He said early in the week he told the university and the City of DeKalb &#8220that there could be a lot of rain-maybe as much as 6 inches. The NIU staff and city officials also were told there could be heavy winds, hail and maybe a tornado along with the rain. &#8220Since we were going to see tens of thousands of students and their parents arriving on campus, we went into our action plan,” Sebenste said. He told officials that specifically at 2:30-3 p.m., the center of the storm was south of the university and could involve hail, a 70 mph wind, and possibly a tornado. His early warning helped the city and university deal with the crisis., said Bob Albanese, associate vice president for facilities and operations. With the fear of a tornado on Thursday, move-in day, &#8220We got the kids straightened out, first.” On Friday, knowing there would be a flood, Albanese said, &#8220At 10 a.m, we sent the employees home except for critical workers, grounds, building maintenance and building service workers. We knew where the water would hit-Anderson, Faraday and Neptune Residence Hall. &#8220From Friday through Monday, all the maintenance and heating plant and service workers worked steadily. We moved all the water out that we could. By Monday morning, we got 80 buildings up and running-with the exception of three rooms in the Art Building. I was really proud of our guys. And by Monday, it was business as usual,” Albanese said. Retired geography professor Ron Flemal, who has been involved with water issues, such as pollution control during his career, suggests that flood problems are endemic to the area. &#8220This whole area was originally a swamp, you know.” He also said some of the problem is due to agricultural development, a cause not usually cited. Mayor Frank Van Buer said he is intent on reactivating the old or establishing a new commission that will include individuals who have been victims of the flood., as well as those with skills to address the problem.” Van Buer said, &#8220I will be asking for recommendations from across the community for people to serve on the commission. &#8220My opinion is that we will be having more of these challenges because of global warming. Does our infrastructure still fit, both our sanitary sewer and stormwater systems? Maybe we need to have more detention and retention areas. Maybe we should have a big lagoon?” He said perhaps the city should buy land in the Dawn Court area to put in a retention pond there. What are some new methods of controlling flooding and preserving buildings? One concept is a rapid deployment barrier system that was designed to protect a casino. Another, called the ”Vitiver green technology system,” uses plants native to India that have 30-40 percent more tensile strength than others. The system was addressed by Wall Street Journal reporter Susan Warren in &#8220Found in the Weeds: Bug Scientist Touts Cure for Levee Leaks.” There is a concern, however, about whether such plants would be invasive. A more ecological approach to flooding is taken by WWF (formerly World Wildlife Fund) on their web page on uncontrolled floods. They state, &#8220Human mismanagement is now wreaking havoc. Floods are a natural phenomenon. They occur naturally every year, usually in winter or spring...Floods play an important ecological role and this is crucial for our economy, too.... &#8220Floods are becoming worse due to large scale projects which straighten and narrow rivers...River courses have been straightened, often to assist navigation-and constricted into artificially narrow channels by the construction of dikes to enable former floodplains to be used for farming, urban development and transport links. All this straightening and narrowing makes rivers flow faster over a much smaller area. &#8220Floodwaters have nowhere to go, since the floodplains that would normally store the excess flow quite safely, have been cut off from their rivers or have been destroyed entirely.”