Elgin Braces For Potential Flooding
ELGIN (CBS) -- Day after day of rain causes more worry in places like Elgin, where they're on alert for flooding.
Residents are watching the water. The reason is simple. Elgin's Poplar Creek doesn't typically run as fast or as high as it is right now. Making matters worse: The ground is saturated. Those two things mean city leaders are concerned about potential driving rain.
"When the ground is as saturated as it is now, and a lot of rain comes down in a short period of time, it just creates the water going up higher and higher," Karen Flanagan of Elgin's Office of Emergency Management said Friday.
Past experience has taught her, if the water can't recede, you get flooding.
It's why the suburb is keeping an eye on weather updates, and the creeks. It also has a message to residents on the city website: If it continues to rain, and the water continues to rise, evacuate before there's real trouble – like in 2008.
Gary and Kay Clausen say it took them and neighbors two years to clean up after that flood.
"We have a lot of sleepless nights when the weather's like this," Kay Clausen said. "We'll get up through the night to check and to see if we should actually put the sandbags out."
They have them on the ready. So does Elgin. It's all about doing what you can to prevent the pain of floods past.
Flanagan recalls: "I was down there helping out folks, who had entire lifetimes go into dumpsters. It was very sad."
She says creek flooding could affect a few hundred homes in Elgin. In 2008, when they had some 10 inches of rain in 24 hours, they had to evacuate people by boat. They hope the latest advisory will keep things from getting to that point.
