More rain adds to Illinois woes

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, Ill. – More rain pushed floodwaters higher in northern Illinois on Friday, threatening further havoc in a region where days of torrential thunderstorms have swamped thousands of homes and left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity.

In this Chicago suburb, about 300 people piled sandbags against 4-foot-high concrete barriers, aided by backhoes and bulldozers, but they didn’t know whether it would be enough to hold back the rising Des Plaines River.

“It’s just getting worse,” Fire Chief Don Gould said. “All these people will be flooded out if we don’t move quick.”

A storm carrying heavy rain and high winds Thursday knocked down thousands of trees and tree limbs around metropolitan Chicago and left more than half a million utility customers without power. About 173,000 remained without electricity Friday night, said ComEd spokeswoman Anne Prammaggiore.

In Dyer, Ind., southeast of Chicago, authorities began evacuating St. Margaret Mercy Hospital as water from a creek behind the building began seeping in. About 70 patients were being moved to other hospitals, spokeswoman Maria Ramos said.

Authorities cut power to the hospital as a precaution, and police and firefighters went door to door in Dyer telling people to leave.

Parts of Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota, meanwhile, continued cleaning up after earlier flooding. Nearly a week of powerful storms, heavy rain and devastating flooding across the Upper Midwest has damaged thousands of homes and been blamed for at least 17 deaths.

As much as another 2 inches of rain was expected to pelt the Chicago area by Friday night, although a repeat of Thursday’s powerful storms was not likely, said National Weather Service meteorologist Nathan Marsili.

“There is still the potential for severe weather, especially in the south and southwest suburbs,” he said. But “it looks like more of a rain event than a severe-weather event.”

No homes had been evacuated by Friday afternoon in Prospect Heights. The city is near O’Hare International Airport, but airport operations were not threatened.

Rising water on the Fox and Des Plaines rivers prompted authorities to increase the flood alert level for northern Lake County to red, the highest level. The Fox River was approaching 50-year levels, with flooding possible this weekend when water from rain-drenched Wisconsin arrives downstream.

Fifty-five miles west of Chicago in DeKalb, the Kishwaukee River reached near-record levels, spilling over its 15-foot levees, flooding neighborhoods and making bridges impassable.

About 600 residents of DeKalb and nearby Sycamore have been displaced, said DeKalb City Manager Mark Biernacki. Northern Illinois University’s flooded DeKalb campus was closed.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared Cook, Lake, Kane and McHenry counties state disaster areas, a move that will help deliver state aid to those areas.

In lower Michigan, a line of heavy storms swept through for the second day in a row, spawning tornadoes that destroyed or damaged several homes. No injuries were reported Friday, although a motorcyclist was killed Thursday when his bike hit a fallen tree in the road, authorities said.