Glen Ellyn-area resident: Worst in 30 years; flood victims rescued

Even in the dark, Terry Davis sensed there was something different about his basement bedroom when he woke up around 6 a.m. Thursday.

Unfortunately, he was right.

“I reached down from the bed and there was about three inches of water on the floor,” said Davis, a resident of the Valley View subdivision near Glen Ellyn.

By 4 p.m., those few inches had swollen to more than 4 feet, with water standing just inches from the main floor of his home on Arbor Lane.

“I’ve been here 30 years, and this is the worst I’ve seen,” he said. “I just hope it doesn’t come in the front door.”

The flooding was so bad in Davis’ neighborhood, at Butterfield Road and Route 53, that firefighters used boats and rafts to partially evacuate the area.

DuPage County sheriff’s spokeswoman Dawn Domrose said early reports indicated about a fourth of the subdivision was underwater. No injuries were reported.

Davis, 56, said his son helped him remove furniture, electronics and family keepsakes from the basement, and a friend has offered to help clean up the place once the water recedes.

He declined to evacuate, instead staying home to keep an eye on a lone sump pump positioned on his basement steps.

“I’m not going through anything that anybody else who’s been in a flood hasn’t gone through,” he said. “People have lived through this.”

Rescue efforts were headed up by the Lisle, Geneva and Sugar Grove fire departments and the sheriff’s office. Evacuees were taken to Arbor View Elementary School, 22W430 Ironwood Drive.