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Guv to do aerial survey of flood damage

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Illinois

* From a 9:59 am press release…

Governor Rod R. Blagojevich today will take an aerial tour of the flooded regions of Northeastern Illinois today. Following the aerial tour, Governor Blagojevich will hold a press conference to address state efforts on the recent flooding.

* The Albany Park and Mayfield neighborhoods of Chicago were particularly hard hit by the weekend flooding of the Chicago River…

About 12 to 15 city blocks in the Albany neighborhood are still under water.

City workers have been putting up walls of sandbags. Unfortunately the sandbagging efforts have not made much of a difference in parts of the neighborhood.

This weekend the rain dumped about 90 billion gallons of water on the Chicago area — which caused the Chicago River to spill over its banks.

* Mayor Daley is on yet another European tour, so he was a no-show at the sandbag lines.

I didn’t see any press reports about Gov. Blagojevich checking out the prevention efforts, even though the flooded areas are just a hop, skip and a jump from his house. North Park College is the location of the Red Cross shelter for flood victims, and that’s about 3.2 miles from the governor’s house.

But today he’s doing an aerial tour. Wonderful.

Let that be a lesson to you Downstaters who were so frustrated with the governor’s slow response to recent flooding. He’s apparently not an early responder, no matter where it is.

Do you have any weekend flood stories to share with us?

* Related…

* School closings

* Weekend rain leads to four deaths

* Victims stunned by high water, but they’re not moving

* Some evacuated as Chicago River crests on NW Side

* 7-inch downpour floods basements, roads, briefly cuts off O’Hare

* Chicago region ready to start drying out

* Chicago flooding pictures

* Drenched Illinois gets more rain

* It’s a mess out there

* Rains force several DuPage towns to declare emergency areas

* Flooding Hits Northwest Chicago

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:18 am

Comments

==He’s apparently not an early responder==

I’ve got 3 million doses of expired flu shots that say otherwise!

Comment by Vote Quimby! Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:24 am
The man literally lives in walking distance of the flooding. He has to travel further to get to the helicopter to do the tour than he would if he just walked out the door and down the block. Amazing.

Comment by montrose Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:24 am
A helicopter tour is absurd. He’s right there.

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:28 am
They have the right to be here, btu I cant wait until I can stop looking at the “vote no” on a Con Con ad. That thing is tough to endure.

Comment by Speaking At Will Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:30 am
So far, according to AP, more fatalities have been reported from Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Depression Ike in the Midwest (16 in all, including 2 in Illinois and 6 in Indiana) than along the Gulf Coast (7 in Texas, 6 in Louisiana, for a total of 13). And you thought only coastal residents had to worry about hurricanes…

Comment by Secret Square Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:37 am
ah, so that is why the mayor is not here. still not happy about that.

the leaders of this state have to put their face on the front lines.
that means all of them, not just Durbin standing in for Obama, not Blago in a copter, not Todd when there is no mayor.

although….todd may have stepped into the questions about the government work on this when he said this am on tv that the city and the MWRD did not anticipate such problems. too bad, cause as of 5:30 am on Saturday morning, those of us who have flooding problems were already getting water. more should have been done. we were at our homes getting slammed.

Comment by Amy Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:48 am
Amy, anybody who knows Des Plaines, Franklin Park and Lyons could have easily anticipated there was going to be big trouble by checking the weather forecast when they woke up to a pounding rain Saturday morning. Lot of flooding history there.

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:54 am
Breaking news: Governor Blagojevich today visited flooded area in the NE part of Illinois, where the floodwaters are quickly receeding. He filled one sandbag, declared the flood was now in check by throwing the sandbag into a hole, and told the press to now call him Moses.

Comment by Little Egypt Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:56 am
Iremember the last time the DP river flooded anywhere near this bad was in 2004, summer I beleive. i had an interview up in Zion and would have been lost due to road flooding it it weren’t for my keen map reading skills

Comment by Wumpus Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 10:59 am
Rich, I’m aware that I don’t have to read your blog, much less post on it. However, IMHO, even though you are far from impartial on most subjects, when the first thing that comes up on your blog is an advertisement against Con-Con, I would suggest you are not doing this issue any favors. Most people who post here have no difficulty in making up their minds and your advertisement against Con-Con isn’t going to sway the issue one way or another. However, you could use said space for another cheap shot article about Sarah Palin which compares her to our infamous governor. I also realize this posting hs a shelf life of about 15 seconds.

Comment by Just My Opinion Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 11:01 am
wordslinger, right. that means the governments should have
anticipated. what could they have done? readied the sandbags, considered what to do with the Chicago river…reversing the flow, could that have been done earlier? from my reading on
line it seems that all of that came later that it should have in the city and in the suburbs. we were getting a one two punch of
tropical storm Lowell and hurricane Ike and public officials knew that in advance.

it’s a big storm problem, but even in neighborhoods
away from the worst flooding there are fully flooded basements and piles of wet belongings in the streets and alleys.

leadership, longing for leadership.

Comment by Amy Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 11:02 am
JMO, do you think I just post those ads for free? Are you insane? Wait, I take back that question because it’s obvious from the totality of your comment that you are not thinking clearly enough to respond.

lol

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 11:04 am
Just my Opinion,

Rich has to pay the bill, too, you know. In fact, he has written articles supporting a con-con.

Roosevelt is closed today by the cemetery in Forest Park, IL due to the Des Plaines river having overflowed. Traffic is snarled!

Comment by cermak_rd Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 11:04 am
How many of you would turn down a free (read: taxpayer-funded) helicopter ride under the guise of touring flooded regions?

I particularly enjoy when we use the word “tour” to describe an assessment of widespread damages that will cost people their homes - like it’s sponsored by one of our soon to be closed state parks.

Comment by The Doc Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 11:20 am
Rich, the name of the neighborhood is Albany Park, not Albany.

And it is insulting for Blago to issue a press release saying he’ll take a helicopter tour of the area when the jerk lives barely a mile from the affected area. Couldn’t he had just gone over there on one of his jogs? but then he wouldn’t have had a chance to notify the press in advance. What a disgusting excuse for a public official!

Comment by fedup dem Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 11:22 am
Yeah, I knew that. Typo.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 11:24 am
Amy, I noticed references to TS Lowell at the Chicago NWS website… that was a weak PACIFIC storm that made landfall in Baja California over a week ago! How on earth did it manage to cause as much or more damage in Chicago than in Mexico? We’re not even safe from Pacific hurricanes!

Comment by Secret Square Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 11:31 am
JMO,

Rich took no cheap shots at Sarah Palin. It was one of the sharpest looks at Palin I’ve heard since she came into national consciousness a few weeks back. If the comparisons are there, they are there. And Palin’s got some doozies still left in the closet.

Comment by WonderBoy Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 11:33 am
An aerial survey? How about we cut the expense of aerial surveys and put it towards keeping the dana thomas house open. He could drive to these places!

Comment by Ghost Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 12:02 pm
Meanwhile, Mayor Daley is taking in a CSO concert in Switzerland, fawning over the robust transit system of a city with 1/6 of Chicago’s population. While residents are flooded out of their homes and the administration is holding everyone hostage by failing to provide details of job and service cuts due to an estimated $420 million budget hole, Daley’s still fawning over an Olympic bid while dining in the mountains of Lucerne.

Thank goodness we have the likes of Todd Stroger to declare a state of emergency in Cook Co. (insert sarcastic barb here).

Comment by The Doc Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 12:04 pm
Secret Square, that’s why we taxpayers pay the government to watch the weather and wake up when we are up trying to keep the basement dry. sandbags should have started in Des Plaines, Park Ridge, Albany Park, Skokie, Glenview, and more early on Sat. am. the river should have been pushed to the lake earlier.
do we have to tell them what to do?

Comment by Amy Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 12:08 pm
Sell the State of Illinois Air Force. Remove the temptation.

Comment by Arthur Andersen Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 12:09 pm
What the Governor should do is visit the areas without making a big deal out of it, and wear clothes that would enable him to pitch in.

A little example-setting would go a long way “Mr. I Want A Third Term”.

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 1:51 pm
Don’t be so hard on the Guv people! His popularity has sunk so low he’s got to take the possibility of anti-aircraft fire seriously!

Comment by Anonynick Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 2:58 pm
Those Con Con ads are some of the best prose on this blog!
They should be used in Rhetoric classes as excellent examples of persuasive writing.

Comment by Bill Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 3:06 pm
Did the helicopter have to fly in from Springfield so blago could go on this tour of the flooded region?

Comment by Huh? Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 3:10 pm
AA, someone running for gov in 2010 is going to make a great TV spot about grounding Con Air except in extreme situations. Of course it has legitimate purposes, but it’s been abused.

I can’t believe the Sun-Times or some enterprising blog (hint, hint) doens’t keep a daily running tally on the cost.

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 3:43 pm
I can’t believe I am going to defend Blago, but the flooding was across the entire Metro area not just Albany Park. If you want to see it you have to fly. The only worthwhile thing he has done during his administation is sandbag. He has found his nitch.

Comment by State O Main Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 4:33 pm
I heard as Rod flew over area, he said it looked like a great place to put a DOT office building.:-)

Comment by Gregor Monday, Sep 15, 08 @ 6:36 pm