The Town of Normal may be getting a financial boost for a proposed project easing areas prone to flooding in Uptown.
In a visit to Normal on Monday afternoon, Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen said he thinks he can secure an additional $1.6 million dollars in the next appropriations package to help pay for storm sewer and drain upgrades to the current overwhelmed system.
“This is about solving a real problem,” said Sorensen, a former broadcast meteorologist representing areas of Bloomington-Normal, Greater Peoria, the Quad Cities and Rockford. “We’re seeing more ferocious thunderstorms. They are happening with greater frequency, and this is going to cost us something down the line.”
Sorensen previously secured $2 million for the Locust/Colton sewer separation project in Bloomington and another $1.55 million for the Town of Normal to address the stressed system running through Uptown. That 2024 funding would be combined with the $1.6 million federal grant Sorensen is seeking through a community project grant to cover well over half the total $4.5 million projected cost.
“Uptown Normal—it’s a hub and we want to continue to see it grow,” Sorensen said. “When flooding disrupts the area, it affects students’ ability to get to class, workers trying to get to their jobs, small businesses staying open—it goes on and on and on. Which is why this project matters.”
'We have to redo this system'
The central business district’s current design was first conceived close to three decades ago.
“When we did some early work in Uptown Normal, we had no idea the ferocity of storms that were going to come and overwhelm our system,” Mayor Chris Koos said during Monday’s news conference.
“We have to redo this system,” he said.
Once in a millennium flooding in June 2021 pushed officials to get serious about it. Severe storms caused flooding at Uptown Normal’s Hyatt and Marriott hotels and Watterson Towers, an Illinois State University dormitory housing more than 2,000 students.
The project includes new relief storm sewers installed along a 250-foot stretch of West Beaufort Street west of Broadway, plus sewer line running 2,100 feet south underneath Broadway.
The project is still in the design and engineering phase. Engineering and Public Works director Ryan Otto said that design includes close consideration of the downstream effects of increased sewer capacity throughout the rest of the system—and the future below-grade Uptown Underpass, which borders the flood zones most impacted during the 2021 storms and will include its own storm drains.
“We’re working right now to make sure that we don’t adversely impact downstream areas with our additional capacity that we’re installing,” Otto said. “Everything’s tied together. It’s all one large drainage area that we’re working with, and we want to make sure we’re taking care of all the various areas—especially downstream.”
With this new federal grant, Koos said the town is prepared to pick up the rest of the tab, moving the project into an implementation phase.
“It’s basically our continuing pressure on the federal government to put more funds into this project,” Sorensen said. “It doesn’t mean that this is a done deal—I wish I had the check for you today, Mayor, but it means we’re going to continue to go work in Congress to make sure that through the appropriations process, we get this through early next year.”
Sorensen recently introduced new legislation which aims to establish a National Weather Safety Board, modeled after a federal counterpart investigating transportation disaster responses. The proposal suggests installing a 10-member panel to investigate weather-related disasters in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Weather Service, FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Communications Commission.
NBC News reported this week that storm prediction is becoming less reliable at the National Weather Service, which has been beleaguered by staffing issues.
