Church floods again, but counts its blessings

Drying out and cleaning up from last summer's devastating flood was challenge enough for St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church.

Getting all the parties on board to work out a permanent solution to the water woes - the village of Streamwood, the park district, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, engineers, consultants and the Chicago Archdiocese - proved equally trying.

"It was a great, cooperative effort - but just getting all of the bureaucracies to work together and getting all of them agreeing on all the different things was a tremendous effort to be sure," said church Deacon Larry Rybicki.

Then last weekend - just weeks before breaking ground on a $600,000 project aimed at rerouting storm drainage away from the church - parishioners found themselves in the same boat as so many area homeowners: pumping out water nearly a foot deep in some areas, salvaging what they could, tearing down drywall and moving precious belongings to higher ground.

It was the third flood in two years for St. John's. It wasn't as bad as the August 2007 deluge, but it did destroy or mar some computers and furniture that had just arrived two weeks before - "really the heart-wrenching part," Rybicki said - and once again significantly damaged the Reservation Chapel, where the Eucharist is kept.

Now mostly past the immediate crisis, the church has set up a makeshift office in its parish center and is working with a salvage company to figure out what's been lost for good.

"It's kind of hectic. It's a real process," said church secretary Shirley Zoller, "but our sacramental books, thank God, we kept in higher drawers."

That look-on-the-bright-side attitude is apparently pervasive at St. John's. Rybicki noted with gratitude how many volunteers - including some not affiliated with the church - showed up over the weekend, unsolicited, to help out.

He also said that as the group paused during the cleanup for the liturgy, people did not merely pray for themselves or the church, but for those on the Gulf Coast suffering the brunt of Hurricane Ike.

"Yeah, we can take this one on the chin - We lost some furniture, some computer systems. But there were people who suffered much more than we did, who lost everything," Rybicki said. "That really says something about this faith community."