New Urban Realities -OR- Eeny Meany Miney, Hey MOE!

Pave Paradise, put up a parking lot?

Having an indoor swimming pool was once considered a luxury, even by the pretentious standards of north shore wealth. Now, thanks to urban sprawl, poor urban planning, questionable building and zoning rulings, political contributions and clout, much of the city of Chicago and its inner ring suburbs are learning the science of hydraulics
in spectacular fashion.



From the City's Website:
"With an abundance of buildings, streets and parking lots, urban areas have very little green space to absorb or slow down the onslaught of water in a heavy rain. It's especially a problem in the City of Chicago, a city built on a swamp. The high water table contributes to slower absorption rates and more water flowing overland to fill the city's sewers - an interconnected system carrying both storm runoff and sanitary sewer waste.

Chicago's long and colorful history includes troublesome tales of flooded homes filled with five feet of contaminated, bacteria-carrying water from sewer backup. Residents have had to clear muck, throw out possessions and redo their basements - time and time again. It's no wonder that a solution is top priority for these urban citizens."

I'm not sure what happened to the paragraphs I originally wrote in this here space. They somehow went down the drain?
Maybe in the next deluge they'll back up?

So to update... On Monday night the PTB in our village arrayed before a capacity crowd in the village hall meeting room. The first thing people needed to know is that the village is broke. There's no money and the storm response was already costing lots of overtime and a plethora of etceteras. Then they brought in our village engineers to explain why the municipal sewers backing up randomly into homes that have never had back-up problems was a one-off fluke. A freak of nature, apart and separate from the curb, gutter, sewer and water projects of summer 2009. Different than last month's one-off fluke too which also had no relationship to the roadwork of last summer/fall.

The village will be issuing "HELPER" id tags to villagers who want to volunteer.(pending a backround check?) A facebook page has begun and now has 110 followers.
They too will try to connect those in need to offers to help.

The mayor had declared to the county that we are a disaster area. The county has declared to the state that it is a disaster area. The state has declared to the federal government that we are a disaster area.

Oh BOY!! FEMA will be sending someone to take reports. That oughta make everything swell.