Eastern McLean County Hard-Hit By Flooding: Drenching Rains Swamp Roads, Infrastructure
By Phyllis Coulter, The Pantagraph, Bloomington, Ill.
Jan. 8–UPDATED 1 p.m. GIBSON CITY — Rain has canceled school in one community and residents in another are urged to use less water until flooded sewage systems can catch up.
Periodic rain continues to fall in Central Illinois, parts of which could receive up to 5 inches before day’s end.
Residents of Gibson City, especially on the south side, tackled backed up sewage in their homes Tuesday morning as the city’s water superintendent worked solve problems created by flooding that overwhelmed the sewage plant.
“We’ve got a problem here,” said Mayor Dan Dickey. He drove through the community before 9 a.m. and noted some roads were impassable.
In Colfax, Ridgeview School District Superintendent Larry Dodds initially delayed classes for one hour. He canceled classes when he learned the extent of the flooding and sewage problems.
Gibson City received more than three inches of rain, which hasn’t soaked in because the ground is frozen. That combined with the flooded sewage plant and overflowing Drummer Creek has caused more challenges.
Dickey has asked people to skip laundry today, limit toilet flushing and conserve water they use and expel.
“We’re really concerned for the people whose sewer is backing up,” he said.
Water Superintendent Randy Stauffer was trying to get parts for the sewage plant problem.
Gibson City doesn’t have the staff or equipment to help people pump out flooded basements, so residents used pumps or bought some to deal with the problem, he said.
Dickey bought a pump at the hardware store to pump out his own flooded basement.
In Sibley, Mayor Camilla Lohmeyer was doing the same thing. “Flooded basements are par for the course today,” she said.
Near Colfax, water is at banks of the Mackinaw River and other streams have overflowed.
Up to six inches of water was standing in some areas of district bus barns in Arrowsmith, Dodds said. The buses could have gotten out, but the roads weren’t safe to travel.
Dodds said schools closed for a day in 2004-2005 when the sewage plant could not handle the amount of water running through it. It’s a rare reason to call an emergency day. “That’s why we have these days,” he said.
The National Weather Service earlier issued a flood warning for McLean, Logan, DeWitt, Tazewell and Logan counties, among others.
Parts of Central Illinois already have received from 1.5 to 3.5 inches of rain since the storms started late Monday afternoon, bringing fierce winds amid unseasonably balmy January temperatures.
Ameren Corp. reported a few outages near the Towanda area but it is not clear whether those outages are weather-related.
Reports from the National Weather Service in Romeoville indicates Livingston County received anywhere from two to four inches. Highway engineer David Winters said the number of flooding situations were “too numerous to identify.”
“It’s definitely a problem and we are addressing it,” Winters said. “One of the problems that we have is that the area is so flat. We have no topography to speak of and the water floods easily and evenly throughout the county.”
Livingston County Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Glowacki said the department received a few calls of people stranded in high amounts of water in rural areas and that drivers should use caution.
Emergency Services and Disaster Agency Director Chuck Schopp was monitoring potential flooding of the Vermillion River. Jerry Mathia, chief plant operator for Illinois American Water, said the water level above the Vermillion River dam, along Mill Street, was 99 inches and was rising four to five inches an hour.
Mathia said water would have to reach about 115 inches above the dam before flooding could occur.
Pantagraph reporter Tony Sapochetti contributed to this report.
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