Severe Flood Damage Recorded by FEMA in Des Plaines

Two weeks after the storm that caused massive flooding along the Des Plaines River and elsewhere in the region, emergency management workers were focused on completing an overall damage assessment in order to make the case that federal disaster relief is needed. If a federal disaster is declared, funding would be made available to qualifying residents, and loans would be cheaper for businesses to rebuild.

Patricia Thompson, spokesperson for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, said her agency was working in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and local emergency management agencies to complete the second phase of data collection, called the preliminary damage assessment, in 48 counties in Illinois. That work began on Monday in Des Plaines and other areas in Cook, Lake and DuPage counties.

The water has begun to recede, an initial damage assessment has been done by local emergency management workers and flooding occurred in those three counties in heavily-populated areas, Thompson said.

“So it’s a good starting point for us; hopefully we’ll be able to document a lot of damage,” Thompson said.

Thompson said information collected by local officials helped state and federal agencies develop a plan to target the most severely damaged areas.

“They might not get to every single home that had damage, but what they really want to do is see the very worst of it because by reporting that, that strengthens our case for federal assistance,” Thompson said.

It was too early on Wednesday to determine whether a request to declare the flood a federal disaster would be made, but, Thompson said, if enough damage was documented before completing the assessment in all 48 counties, a request might be made, that could be added to later.

“Depending on how this goes, and it’s really hard to say at this point, but depending on how it goes the rest of this week and perhaps into next week, if we get to a point where we think we have a lot, we have a good number of homes already documented, that we might be able to go ahead and make a request, based on the counties we’ve already done,” Thompson said. “And then as we make our way through the other counties, [we would] be able to add requests to the disaster declaration.”

Bettina Hutchings, spokesperson for FEMA, said she could not say how many residences were being visited by her agency’s workers in Des Plaines because the data first goes to the county, then to the state.

“I can’t give you an exact number because we haven’t been counting them that way,” Hutchings said.

Alex Dambach, director of community and economic development for Des Plaines, said the city collected information about damage to 526 properties, and more than 200 properties had more than one foot of water in the first floor, or structural damage.

Dambach said it was important Des Plaines residents complete the damage assessment available on the city’s website in order for the county and state to meet the threshold when a request for a federal disaster declaration may be made.

Des Plaines residents should first report damage to their insurance company, Hutchings said, and save receipts from repair work they are doing. A list of the information Des Plaines residents would need to provide to qualify for federal assistance, if funds are made available, is on FEMA’s website.

If federal funding is made available, Des Plaines residents would register online or by calling an 800-number that would be announced at that time, Thompson said.

“[Des Plaines residents] need to start listening if there’s a declaration, and they need to be prepared to call and register for assistance,” Hutchings said.

Hutchings said she noticed something else in addition to flood damage while visiting Des Plaines.

“When I drove in, I thought I was at the wrong address because there was no debris on the side of the road,” Hutchings said. “[Compared with] other cities I’ve been in this week, this was by far the cleanest.”

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