Suburbs begin to dry out, but some residents still stuck

Denice Kardas spent much of Sunday wondering how she would get to her chemotherapy treatment as she watched row boats paddle down what once was Illini Drive in Carol Stream.

"This isn't Illini Drive anymore," Kardas said. "This is Illini River."

Kardas and about 50 other homes in her neighborhood were among some of the hardest hit by torrential rains that deluged the area Friday evening. DuPage County was in the target zone for some of the heaviest rainfall. It remained a focus for ComEd workers Sunday as the Glenbard Regional Office remained the only area on its outage map with a yellow light. That yellow light signifies more than 500 customers still had no power as of 9 p.m. Sunday.

That marked a significant improvement over when the storm first hit and left more than 170,000 people in the dark. There was even a power outage in the maximum security division of the Cook County jail, and flooding at the Criminal Courts building pushed bond hearings to the Harrison and Kedzie facility for awhile. ComEd mobilized 180 repair crews and returned power to 98 percent of its customers in the area by Sunday morning.

But power wasn't what Kardas was worried about. As of Sunday afternoon, she had no idea how she was going to leave her house, or what might happen if her battle with cancer sent her to the emergency room as it has twice in recent weeks.

"We're literally an island right here in the middle of Carol Stream," Kardas said. "Are they going to start airlifting supplies to us? Is anyone going to come out and talk to us about what to do? Does anyone care that we're stranded here?"

Water sat stagnant about midway up a yellow fire hydrant on Kardas' street. The flooding crept right up to the driveways on most homes leaving residents in a limbo of area of not having water in their houses, but having high enough water that many could not get their cars onto the roads.

Many residents in the area put the blame on the village and Mayor Frank Saverino, saying they haven't seen any police or public works employees coming to assist anyone. Saverino said the area is so flooded that city work crews can't even get equipment in to assess the damage. He said the village is doing everything it can, but the long-term answer for areas with chronic flood problems must come from DuPage County officials.

"I don't know what people expected from us," Saverino said. "Three quarters of the town is in great shape today. But the people in the flooded areas are angry, and they're taking it out on me. What can I do about 7 inches of rain? We've been waiting on a study from the county. It was supposed to take nine months. It's been almost two years. They've done nothing for us. ... If there's something leftover, we might get it. But no one has any money to fix anything right now."

Roadways were the key problem immediately following the rain for most areas, including parts of Kane County in Algonquin and Montgomery. Route 25 in South Elgin was still closed because of standing water on Sunday. The Fox River will remain closed to recreational use until the water level drops, according to Don Bryant, director of the Kane County Office of Emergency Management.

"We're pretty stable right now," Bryant said. "The more it stays sunny, the better we get. Any additional rain will cause us problems depending on how much we get."

The National Weather Service reported portions of the Des Plaines, DuPage and Fox rivers will remain in flood stage through midweek. Some areas of those rivers will not hit flood stage until Tuesday morning. The DuPage River at Bolingbrook hit flood stage Sunday evening, causing some flooding of Naperville Road. Eyes of weather forecasters will concentrate on Wednesday. The weather service said there is about a 40 percent chance of more thunderstorms Wednesday night.