Mayor Johnson visits Chicago’s Southwest Side as residents deal with repeated flooding issues

CHICAGO — Residents on the city’s Southwest Side continue to deal with flooding following severe weather across the Chicago area.

Nearly 6,000 calls have come into 311 since flooding began on Saturday. 

On Tuesday, Mayor Brandon Johnson came to the Gage Park neighborhood to see the damage for himself and explore potential solutions to prevent future flooding, agreeing that the Southwest Side has a big problem when it comes to flooding.

The mayor heard from residents whose houses have flooded not once, but twice, in just the last couple of weeks, after three days of heavy rain and storms, overwhelming the city’s sewers, with residents bearing the brunt.

That is something, they say, that has never happened before.

“It’s like a nightmare,” said Gage Park resident Sharen Parish. “I walked downstairs and the water was past my knee, which is something that’s never happened since I‘ve been living there since 2001.”

Six Chicago alderpeople have signed a letter urging the mayor to invest tens of millions of dollars in a backflow valve system, which costs between $10,000 and $15,000 for each home. 

“Many residents, thousands of families have been impacted,” said Chicago Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th Ward), one of the six alderpersons who signed onto the letter urging Johnson for additional resources.

The Department of Water Management says it’s a matter of aging infrastructure throughout portions of the Southwest Side, in addition to too much rain occurring rapidly.

“The system itself just became overwhelmed, and at the time the system was built, it was built and designed for a five-year rain, and now we’re getting more 100-year rains,” said Randy Conner, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Water Management.

The city is asking residents who’ve had flooding to fill out a survey to start the ball rolling on possible assistance. To fill out the survey, go to: survey123.arcgis.com

The deadline is Friday, August 22.