We might be in time, Gurnee mayor says
Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik said today that the massive volunteer effort to sandbag homes and businesses along the Des Plaines River may save the village from terrible flood damage once the river crests early tomorrow.
"We may actually have the sandbags in place by this afternoon, and the river isn't going to crest until tonight," Kovarik said, surveying the work being done late this morning.
Hopefully, property damage will be minimized, she said.
"We knew we had a 24-hour window," Kovarik added.
The rising floodwaters of the Des Plaines River are expected to crest at 1 a.m. Saturday morning at 9 feet, 7 inches. Flood level in Gurnee is 7 feet.
Village officials however, are expecting Grand Avenue will be flooded sometime this afternoon. A main east-west thoroughfare through town, Grand gets flooded when the river reaches 9 to 9 1/2 feet.
"We anticipate closing Grand Avenue later this afternoon," Kovarik said.
Meanwhile, more than 600 volunteers--including at least 200 from Great Lakes Naval Station--have been sandbagging Thursday and today.
Volunteers from around the region--as far away as Palatine--answered the call for help that was put out through a Gurnee area network of municipal organizations, businesses and other community sources, even athletic teams.
Volunteers by the hundreds continued to sign up today at the staging area in the north parking lot of Warren Township High School's O'Plaine campus.
"We registered well over 200 yesterday and it looks like we'll beat that by quite a bit," said Diane Logsdon, the volunteer coordinator with Lake County Emergency Management Agency. By 11:25 a.m. today 240 new volunteers had registered, "and those numbers don't include the military," she added.
This is the first year that a state system to direct volunteers has been set up, Logsdon said.
Among the volunteers are more than 200 sailors of all ranks from Great Lakes, who were dispatched all over Gurnee to sandbag flood-prone areas.
"This is strictly a volunteer effort," said Ali Nelson, command master chief, Navy Region Midwest. "No one was ordered to come out here. We had to turn people away because there were so many."
Kovarik said one resident on Kilbourne Road needed a whole day in the last flood to sandbag her house, but today had it done in 20 minutes by two dozen sailors.
Many of the businesses on Old Grand Avenue have already been protected, she said.
Among the civilian volunteers is Greta Nash, a Gurnee mom who brought her elementary aged daughter and son and some of their friends to help out. She said they were looking for a way to help when they saw the sandbag crew.