Whether or not you experienced flooding after the torrential rains of July 22 and 23, the village of Wilmette wants to hear from you, as staff try to get an accurate picture of how the village’s stormwater management system handled those rains.
Village staff have asked property owners to complete a survey that they hope will not only tell them who got flooded — and who didn’t — but just how the water got into peoples’ basements, their garages or any other part of their property.
Wilmette has spent more than $40 million in sewer system improvements since 1992, Village Manager Timothy Frenzer told trustees at the Village Board’s July 26 meeting. And, notwithstanding the economic downturn and the village’s tight financial situation, staff worked hard to include another $2.5 million in sewer work to the current year’s budget, he said.
“After the storm event of 2008, we did a village-wide survey, to ask how people experienced flooding and what form it took,” Frenzer said. “The answers helped us analyze our needs, and the impact our stormwater management efforts have had.
“That’s what we want to determine this time.”
It is just as important to hear from people who escaped flooding, he said, because that will let administrators know which areas successfully dodged the water.
Village staff also want to know what type of water affected property owners, whether it was basement seepage, water that was the result of sump pump failure, or backups into laundry tubs, showers, or toilets, for example.
“Did it come in overland? Did it back up into your basement? We need to know that,” he said.
The survey asks respondents to say how much water they got, and whether they experience power outages during the storm. It also asks for historical information; how many times in the past five years the homeowner experienced sewer backups.
Residents will also be asked if they have sewer backup protection, and what type that might be.
Residents can give their survey input several ways. The form is available to fill out at the village’s web site, and can be accessed at www.wilmette.com/ by clicking on the flood survey news story link. Residents can also respond by e-mail, Frenzer said.
The village is also preparing to mail the survey out to all roughly 12,500 Wilmette households, Engineering Director Brigitte Mayerhofer said Tuesday.
She said officials hope to get responses back by Aug. 19.
“We had reasonable response to our 2008 survey,” she said. We’d like to have a good response this time around.”
For more information contact the Engineering Department at (847) 853-7660.
