Cicero holds public meeting on flooding issues.

Source: WGN 9, 7/18/23

CICERO, Ill. — On the heels of recent flooding and residents demanding solutions to the problems caused, the town of Cicero held a public hearing Tuesday aiming to provide an update on the situation.

“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” said one community member during the meeting. “That’s the thing. We don’t want it in the basements, we’d like to have it somewhere else.”

Tempers boiled over during the meeting, leading to several contentious moments unfolding in the auditorium of Morton College between local residents and town officials.

Cicero was one of the hardest hit suburbs when it came to flooding from severe thunderstorms and rain showers earlier this month, leaving residents cleaning up their homes for days.

But some residents said the flooding and sewer backup experienced from the storms is not a new issue, and a new plan to improve water infrastructure has been long overdue.

“President [Larry] Dominick has met with state and federal lobbyists to obtain grants for water retention infrastructure,” said Ray Hanania, spokesman for the town of Cicero.

Town officials said a regional approach is being taken to the problem, since the current water system is shared between multiple municipalities, and that FEMA will soon go door-to-door to work with residents to better assess damages, and collect more specific information to determine whether residents are eligible for damage assistance.

“Self-insurance and self-responsibility is the end result,” said Greg Nimmo from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency under the Office of Homeland Security. “We will do everything we can as the state of Illinois with the departments in Cook [County] and within the city to bring every dime that we can into this community, into this county, to help you with recovery.”

During last week’s town hall meeting, Cicero’s town engineer said the sewer system was not built to handle the storm the region saw on the Fourth of July weekend.

Tuesday, as several representatives from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC) were introduced, audible “boo’s” could be heard from the crowd.

“[It was] simply too much storm water in too little time to get to the MWRD,” Steele said. “[It] was like draining a swimming pool with a straw.”

County Commissioner Frank Aguilar said after the storm, he spoke with other local officials to immediately work on deploying a team to assist residents, and said they would have a resolution in place to do so by the Fall.

Town officials also shared the volume of emergency crew responses during and after the storm, revealing fire officials answered more than 300 calls, ten times the normal amount responded to on a 24-hour shift in July.

For those seeking to report flood damage in Cicero, the town’s website has a page dedicated to submitting flood damage reports.