Wheaton: Wait 5-10 years for answers to flooding woes

It's not the answer Wheaton council members were hoping to give residents dealing with persistent flooding.

Before the city can develop a comprehensive plan for reducing stormwater flooding issues throughout the community, officials would need to hire an outside consulting firm to study the problem. It's a process that could take five to 10 years to finish.

Still, that's the recommendation Joseph Tebrugge, Wheaton's stormwater engineer, made Monday night during a presentation for the city council.

Tebrugge says there's simply not enough reliable information about flooding in Wheaton. For example, existing flood plain maps and a list of flood-prone areas may not be complete.

"Because you wouldn't have a good idea of the best mitigation strategies, you could be putting more money toward one (area) that is actually nowhere near as bad as a different area," Tebrugge told council members. "And you could be using strategies that actually end up costing a lot more money in the long-run because you do not have the available data to make good decisions."

After recent storms caused flooding in several spots in Wheaton, some residents have been calling on the city to develop solutions.

"These flooding problems have been around for years, if not decades," Councilman Todd Scalzo said. "There's probably no worse answer you could give than, 'We're evaluating it.' I am sure everyone has given that answer the last two summers now, so people are getting more and more frustrated."

A source of frustration for council members is the realization of how difficult the problem is to address.

One example is the neighborhood near the former Hubble Middle School. Last year, engineering consultants concluded that even a highly complex and costly stormwater project involving the old school site at Naperville and Roosevelt roads wouldn't do much to reduce flooding in the surrounding area.

"It's discouraging," Councilman John Prendiville said. "The problems are so big and so complicated that as much as you want it, there's no silver bullet answer for this."

Still, he said one short-term option could be for the city or DuPage County to acquire flood-prone properties.

In the meantime, Tebrugge said there might be some steps individual property owners can take to protect their houses from flooding. He is available to do a free inspection of properties in Wheaton and offer suggestions to the owners.