Basement apartments destroyed by flood leave residents hanging

Mariajose Pama Serna, 7, came with her family to Cicero from Colombia in hopes of securing asylum.

The family had recently moved into a garden apartment in town thanks to donations and hard work, said Mariajose’s mother, Alejandra Serna.

But their apartment in the 1900 block of 51st Court in Cicero was one of the hundreds hit by a prolonged storm Sunday, flooding basements with water reaching nearly 2 feet high, destroying their belongings and leaving the family, once again, with nothing.

“Otra vez, no sabemos donde dormiremos esta noche,” said Alejandra Serna as she cleaned the kitchen Monday. The family once again does not know where they’ll be spending the night.

Sunday’s heavy rain poured upward of 8 inches in Berwyn, Cicero and Garfield Park, according to preliminary reports from weather officials, sending residents in search of supplies to clean up flooded homes and prompting professional cleaning crews to cancel their holiday.

The worst of the flooding occurred on the west and southwest sides of Chicago and in the near west and southwest suburbs, weather officials said. On Monday, residents of the hardest-hit areas struggled to restore their homes to livable conditions as local officials pledged support.

The National Weather Service said daily rainfall totals ranged from 3 to 7 inches in the immediate Chicago area after “extended rounds of heavy/torrential rainfall.” O’Hare International Airport broke the record for daily rainfall Sunday, recording 3.35 inches. The previous record was 2.06 inches in July 1982.

The preliminary data came from radar estimates, personal weather stations and rain gauges. Official information will be released over the next few days, weather officials said.

Stacks of ruined furniture including mattresses and couches plus some appliances were lined up outside dozens of homes in the alleyways in Cicero on Monday morning. In the stack, a pink bed frame stood out.

“That was my bed,” said Mariajose, wearing plastic gloves because she was helping her mom clean their home.

Another neighbor, Silvia Mazon, was on her way to buy cleaning supplies while she waited for her husband to get home to remove ruined furniture from their basement apartment. Mazon has lived in Cicero since 2003 and said her home has flooded almost every year, “but never like this.”

Mazon worries about the repairs her home will need: new drywall, flooring, kitchen cabinets, appliances and a water heater.

“It’s devastating. There’s people crying; they don’t know where they’ll sleep tonight or what will happen next,” she said.

Mazon is hoping insurance will cover the cost of some repairs; otherwise, she said she hoped the Federal Emergency Management Agency and city officials would step up to help.

Most of the people who live in basement apartments in the area are working class, immigrant families who most likely don’t have renter’s insurance, costing them hundreds of dollars to resettle, said Yessenia Bahena, a lifelong Cicero resident and a property manager of a building in the same block where Mazon lives.

Frank Aguilar, Cook County commissioner of the 16th District, called on other city leaders to push to declare Cook County a disaster area to ensure residents can receive federal funding.

He blamed repeat flooding on a lack of attention paid to aging infrastructure.

“None of the municipalities have the money to fix it, it needs a billion dollar face-lift, that is the only way we will decrease, maybe not stop, but decrease the floods,” Aguilar said.

Thomas Sivak, FEMA regional administrator, did not address questions from the Tribune about plans to declare the area a disaster zone but said anyone affected by flooding should begin cleanup immediately to avoid mold given that temperatures are expected to be high the rest of this week.

“As you do, remember to contact your insurance company to begin the claims process; document any damages by keeping receipts for expenses and taking pictures of damaged items; and, report damages to local officials by contacting either 311 or your local nonemergency number,” he said in a statement. More information is available at www.ready.gov or www.listo.gov.

In addition to flooded homes across Chicago, portions of I-290 and I-55 were flooded Sunday and some CTA services were halted. The majority of 311 calls for flooding on Saturday afternoon were from Austin.

On Monday, Mayor Brandon Johnson held a news conference in Austin, joined by Ald. Emma Mitts, 37th, and locals who were affected by the weekend’s flooding.

The mayor said he would reach out to Gov. J.B. Pritzker for assistance and hoped the Inflation Reduction Act would provide the city financial support to modernize infrastructure.

Some remnants of the deluge remained Monday in Austin. Cars swerved to avoid a deep pool that formed on the corner of North Waller Avenue and West Augusta Boulevard. Mitts said her family — like many in the neighborhood — is struggling with washed-out basements.

“I have 3 to 3 ½ feet of water. Not inches, feet of water, which means it covered couches,” she said. “But I’m concerned more for our residents, those that can’t do this cleanup, that we get some help for them.”

Calls to help with flooded basements or other water damage are about four to five times heavier than usual, said Robert Kerr, general manager of Roto Rooter, which typically fields 50 to 60 requests across the metro area on dry summer days.

”It’s busy everywhere from Buffalo Grove all the way into Portage, Indiana, out to the western suburbs along the Fox River, as well as the big impact downtown,” he said. “If there is water in the basement, getting someone out there as soon as possible is always the best answer, so we’re getting to customers as fast as we can.”

The massive rainstorm also washed out holiday plans for the company’s approximately 100 service technicians.

“They don’t have the day off, but our technicians know that when the weather is rough, it’s time to work,” he said. “It was a unique event, with so much rain falling so fast, so it’s all hands on deck, and it looks like we’ll be doing this on Wednesday as well. We’ll barbecue on Thursday.”

Jay Fuentes, a manager at Clark Devon Hardware in West Town, said the store started receiving calls about flooding supplies Sunday afternoon. People were looking for sump pumps, fans and in a couple cases utility knives to cut up basement carpet, he said.

People dealing with flooding should dry things out as quickly as possible to prevent mold and disinfect the area afterward, he said.

“If you’ve got flooding you probably want to mop with a Lysol or a bleach solution when you’re done,” Fuentes said.

In Berwyn, residents made their way to the JC Licht Ace hardware store during the downpour Sunday in search of sump pumps, submersible pumps and other gear to stem flooding.

“If it pumped, we sold it yesterday,” said Jeremy Melnick, vice president of hardware for JC Licht, which owns close to a dozen Ace hardware stores in the Chicago area.

Melnick said the company transferred inventory from other area stores to the Berwyn location to stay ahead of demand there. “We got low, but we didn’t run out,” he said. Residents elsewhere generally didn’t start coming in for supplies until after the rain had calmed, and they were largely looking for cleaning supplies, Melnick said.

The severe weather over the weekend delayed the scheduled 4:05 p.m. start of the NASCAR Cup Series Grant Park 220, where puddles on the racetrack made for slippery conditions Sunday.

In Evanston, all swimming areas were closed Monday because of elevated and unsafe E. coli levels in Wilmette. The excessive flooding in Wilmette resulted in the water locks being opened, leading to the increased E. coli levels.

The mayor, who said his Austin home was “fortunate” to escape with comparatively “minimal” water damage, spoke Monday about the importance of taking steps to reduce the impact of climate change. He reiterated his goal of ensuring the Department of Environment is fully staffed and funded.

“Literally, the earth is speaking to us loud and clear, where extreme weather is taking place all over the country,” he said. “Unfortunately, because of some of the failed policies of the past that have left our environment vulnerable, this is not likely the last extreme example of weather.”

Hot and humid conditions are forecast for Tuesday. Weather officials said the next two days would stay mostly dry, with a slight chance of isolated storms or showers Tuesday afternoon and early evening.