Judging from the bags of sopping carpet and soggy upholstered furniture in our alley, we can count ourselves among the very fortunate following Saturday’s near record rainfall.
Our sump pump worked overtime and we only got a little seepage in our laundry room and what appears to be some roof damage that is causing a leak in our dining room alcove.
The first indication I got that this storm was worse than a normal heavy rain was an early morning email from an Oak Park Farmer’s Market volunteer who alerted us that she wouldn’t make her market shift because she woke up at 3 a.m. to a basement filled with 5 inches of backed up sewage.
Ick.
It turns out she wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t make the market that day. We were down three market vendors. The farmers who did make it in and set up tents in the torrential rain had a hard time getting back to their farms.
Right around 7 a.m., right as the market opened to the public, the Eisenhower Expressway closed to all traffic from downtown Chicago to Mannheim Road. The Blue Line shut down too, with trains stranded at Austin with flooding so intense that in many places you couldn’t see the electrified tracks. Nor could you see the neighboring CSX tracks, which looked more like a canal than a train thoroughfare.
I saw the flooded highway and tracks after the storm finally broke after about 10:30 a.m. and the sun started to peek through. I had to get to the market for my 11-1 shift, but I dispatched Sim and the kids to the Lombard Ave. bridge to document the flood.
Would need hip waders to get to the train down this walkway:
I’ve never seen the Ike this quiet:
Can’t see the CSX tracks at all to the left and can just make out the CTA tracks down the middle:
Virtual Farmgirl 