The Bloomington City Council on Monday voted to extend by 30 days two emergency declarations made in connection with last week's intense storms.
On Thursday, a microburst dropped 1.5 inches of rain within a one-hour period, causing several areas and roads to flood. Wind gusts topped 60 mph, snapping trees and power poles across the city. McLean County's Emergency Management Agency Director Cathy Beck said Thursday that Bloomington appeared to have sustained most of the damage.
Mayor Dan Brady declared a local disaster emergency for the storm damage and power outages Thursday evening, and issued another on Saturday as flooding became the focus. Now, both of those declarations are in place until Sept. 16.
City Manager Jeff Jurgens said more than 500 calls came in for service on Thursday.
"Historically, we're not sure if we've ever had an incident with so many different calls before," he said.
More than 260 trees were reportedly damaged or destroyed. So far, 140 of those trees have been cleared.
Ten city-owned trees fell on houses; five fell on cars; three fell on fences. All of them have been removed.
Forestry crews and public works are working 12-hour shifts to continue clean-up efforts. Help also is coming from other cities, according to Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation Dave Lamb.
"We have a crew from Champaign coming here tomorrow," he said. That crew will stay throughout the week. The help is through an Illinois Public Works assistance program.
More than 300 loads of brush had been picked up as of Monday evening; that amount of tree debris is likely to surpass what was collected after the April tornadoes that resulted in about 440 loads of brush.
Fees will be waived for garbage and bulk trash pickup related to the storm.
Flash flood warnings were in effect Friday and Saturday. Photo and video captured around Bloomington-Normal showed pools of water in place of roads.
Jurgens said there also were widespread calls for help with flooding. Lamb said the storm water infrastructure was at capacity, but operating as designed.
Jurgens said he was not aware of any reports of sewage backups in homes.
Preliminary estimates from the National Weather Service indicate more than 8 inches of rain fell on Bloomington-Normal from Thursday through Saturday afternoon.
Central Illinois Regional Airport reported 6.6 inches of rain in that time frame. The Town of Normal reported 5.96 inches, while the city of Bloomington measured 6.7 inches of rainfall.
Jurgens expects it to take several more weeks to fully clean up the damage from trees and flooding.
Disaster declarations
Disaster declarations serve to activate certain procedures for aid and assistance when the emergency overwhelms a municipality's resources.
They also kick off the process for requesting federal aid. Bloomington's and Normal's disaster proclamations are not enough for federal aid, though. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker would need to declare a state emergency for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to consider the request.
"There's no guarantee we're going to meet the threshold for assistance from the federal government," Jurgens said, "but what this may do is set us up to be eligible for low-interest loans or low barrier loans."
Residents can report the damage they sustained and how much it cost to clean up and repair it. Those financial totals are needed as part of the federal aid application process.
Construction update
Also Monday, the city council was presented with a five-year pavement treatment plan for repairing or repaving roads.
The city's engineering department argued planning road work out five years at a time would improve communication and collaboration among city agencies, construction crews, and residents.
Currently, Director of Engineering Jim Karch said, the city can only look one year ahead by seeing what roads are on the current resurfacing contract.
Under the plan, four roads will be resurfaced in FY2027: Eastland Drive, Four Seasons Road, Hershey Road and St. Joseph Drive. Eighteen streets will be treated with a high-pressure slurry seal that will extend the life of the asphalt currently there.
City documents detail the starting and ending points of the road work, and the wards each road is in.
Dozens of stretches of road are scheduled for replacement and slurry treatment between FY2028 and FY2032.
Karch also provided an update on Downtown Bloomington construction. Karch said the 400 block of North Main Street will be done within a few weeks.
He also said there was much less flooding in that block after August's storms compared to heavy rain in June. That flooding was due to underground vaults that needed to be reinforced.
"Construction is going to stop until the spring," said Karch, once the 400 block is done, adding work will continue on the vaults underground.
