Wagner residents: Traffic jam wasn't our fault

As Kane County continues to deal with the aftermath of last weekend's flash flooding, Wagner Road Aurora residents say they aren't to blame for a traffic jam in their neighborhood during Saturday's flooding.

They wanted to open the gate at Mesa Lane, to let traffic flow out of the subdivision and across the road into the Wal-Mart parking lot, but were prohibited.

The closure triggered extensive backups, countless calls to police and sparked a perturbed Batavia Mayor Jeffrey Shielke to call Monday for change from neighboring Aurora officials.

With the two towns planning to meet next week to talk about the issue, one Aurora resident said Aurora and Batavia police should have handled the situation differently. Police say they managed the best possible, given the circumstances.

The jam happened when Kirk Road was closed due to flooding. Mesa, too, was flooded, to the east and west of Wagner.

The next westbound road north of the flooding was Wind Energy Pass in Batavia. People were then turning south on Wagner trying to get to Aurora. (Wagner used to go through to Butterfield Road.) But there is no access from that neighborhood since Wal-Mart was built earlier this year and Aurora put the gate in to keep Wal-Mart traffic off Wagner.

Aurora police would not allow detoured traffic to go through the shopping center lot because it is private property, said Kevin Ross, a Wagner resident who said he asked an officer Saturday if he should open the gate.

"If I had to blame anybody, I'd blame the two police departments," Ross said, saying there should have been more officers directing traffic. There was an Aurora officer at Mesa and Kirk, and Batavia police at Wind Energy Pass and Kirk, but a police officer should have also been stationed at Wind Energy Pass and Wagner, he said.

Vehicles, including semitrailer trucks, wound their way down residential Wagner. Eric Jonke erected a makeshift barricade at Wagner and Bluestem Lane to keep traffic off the last block, which ends at the gate. He used "Wagner Road closed" city signs and sawhorses left over from when the Wal-Mart was built, and made another sign with directions out of the subdivision. People drove over or past them, he said, even though he was standing there trying to direct traffic. He also said people threw beer cans at him, and he almost got into a fistfight with one man. He counted about 500 vehicles circling the subdivision.

Jonke said he called Aurora police four times, and Batavia twice. Two hours into the problem, police erected a barricade at Wagner and Wind Energy but people drove around it. After more complaints, a police officer was stationed there pointing people to Raddant Road, and the traffic stopped.

"We had people who were doing their best to keep things civil and safe around here," said Ross.

Ross and Jonke say similar jams occur when there is an accident that blocks Kirk Road.

"One of the issues, even before, is God forbid they (Batavia) run traffic on Wind Energy," which, although it goes through a residential neighborhood, is a wider street. If an accident is blocking Kirk, "they point it (the detoured traffic) right at Wagner," Ross said.

"Their beef with Aurora (about stormwater drainage) is legitimate," said Jonke of Batavia officials, but still, "All it takes is one officer."

Batavia Police Cmdr. Gregory Thrun said Wednesday he wished they could have posted more detour signs and had more officers on Wind Energy, but that the department was simply "stretched thin" responding to calls all around town. "We were doing the best we could with the resources we had available to us at the time," he said.

In other flood news:

People who have wells and septic sewage systems, where the wellhead was under water during last weekend's flooding, are being advised to test their water for bacterial contaminants. Until they get test results back, they should drink and cook with bottled water, or water that has been boiled for at least three minutes.

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, compromised wells should be pumped out, allowed to recharge naturally, disinfected and tested before water from them is used.

For Campton Hills residents, disinfection procedures and water-testing kits are available from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays at the village hall in the Campton Square Shopping Center, Route 64 and LaFox Road. The tests will be analyzed by state microbiologists.

The village is also compiling a list of properties that sustained damage to assist if federal monetary aid becomes available. Contact Trustee Laura Andersen at laura.andersen@villageofcamptonhills.org. She is also collecting contacts for homeowners associations and neighborhood representatives.

Other area residents should contact the Kane County Health Department at (630) 444-3040 or (847) 608-2850 for information about testing kits.

• The Kane County assessment office has begun reassessing properties damaged by the storm. It will mail disaster area reassessment applications to owners of properties identified by the Kane County Office of Emergency Management having a high probability of sustaining storm damage. The application is available at co.kane.il.us/soa/forms/PTAX-245.pdf.

Persons who believe they may be eligible for reassessment should fill out the form and return it to the Kane County Assessment Office, which will then forward the application to the respective township assessors. Be prepared to show evidence of the loss in the form of receipts, insurance claims, photographs, or other evidence.

Those properties qualifying for a revised assessment will have their assessments adjusted on a pro-rata basis for the period from Sept. 13 through the end of the year.

For more information, or to have a form mailed to you, call (630) 208-3818.