Floodwater swallowed a residential street in Woodridge on Sunday afternoon, Aug. 9, stranding at least one vehicle on Woodview Drive and prompting the National Weather Service to continue a flood watch for DuPage County through 7 a.m. Monday, Aug. 10.
Video posted around 4 p.m. showed a car stopped in standing water on Woodview Drive, according to Patch. A second vehicle sat with its hazard lights on, stuck partway out of a flooded entrance ramp on Interstate 355.
The flooding came after 1 to 3 inches of rain fell across parts of northeast Illinois earlier in the day. The NWS Chicago flood watch, updated at 9:02 p.m. CDT, warned that localized rainfall rates could exceed 2 inches per hour overnight as thunderstorms developed along a stalled surface front. Slow storm motion and the potential for multiple rounds of rain increase the risk, the agency said.
The watch covers DuPage, Cook, Kane, McHenry, Will, Kendall, Grundy, Kankakee, De Kalb and Lake counties in Illinois, plus portions of northwest Indiana.
NWS Chicago warned that flash flooding is "extremely dangerous, especially at night" and urged drivers to avoid flooded roadways, according to Patch.
Repeated flooding since late July
Sunday's flooding is the latest in a string of heavy-rain events that have battered the Downers Grove area since late July. Storms on July 27 killed a contractor trapped in a storm sewer in Downers Grove and knocked out power to thousands, as we reported July 28. The NWS issued another flood watch just days later, on July 31.
The repeated storms have strained county resources. The DuPage County Stormwater Management Committee on Aug. 4 approved a $31,000 budget transfer to cover overtime and temporary salaries for field crews working flood operations, according to committee minutes. Director Sarah Hunn told the committee that staff have been inspecting inlets and outlets between storms to prepare for the next event.
"The detention ponds in the neighborhoods need to be maintained to optimize flood control capacity," committee Chair Jim Zay said at the Aug. 4 meeting, adding that he wants to explore a county-municipal program to assess detention areas and dredge where appropriate.
What residents should know
The flood watch expires at 7 a.m. CDT Monday, Aug. 10. Creeks and streams may rise out of their banks, and roads in poor-drainage and urban areas may flood, according to the NWS. Residents can monitor updates at weather.gov/lot.
