Flooding forces hundreds from their east-central Illinois homes
Watseka firefighter Kyann Siebring carries Alisha Condon to safety after Alisha and both her parents were evacuated from their home Wednesday morning. The Associated Press
January 11, 2008
WATSEKA, Ill. – Days of spring-like weather that brought heavy rainfall and melting snow caused severe flooding that forced the evacuation of more than 430 homes in East-Central Illinois, including in this town where floodwaters were as deep as six feet.
The towns hardest hit are Pontiac in Livingston County, where about 200 homes were evacuated when the Vermilion River went over its banks, and Watseka in Iroquois County, where residents left about 235 homes because of flooding from Sugar Creek and the Iroquois River, officials said.
While many of those forced to leave their homes found friends or family to stay with, a Watseka church sheltered about 70 occupants Wednesday night and a Pontiac recreation center took in about 25 people, said Patti Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared the two counties state disaster areas.
In Watseka, a town of about 6,000 about 90 miles south of Chicago, the downtown business district was spared. But floodwaters elsewhere in town reached 6-feet deep in some places, said Carl Gerdovich, director of the Iroquois County Emergency Service Disaster Agency.
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“Most of the people who have lived here a long time say it’s the worst flooding they’ve seen,” he said.
Fire Chief David Mayotte said officials used a dozen boats to rescue about 535 residents, plus 75 pets, starting shortly after midnight Wednesday and continuing into Thursday morning.
The evacuation went smoothly, and no injuries were reported, Mayotte said.
River levels in the area were dropping Thursday after cresting well beyond flood stage Wednesday to near record levels, meteorologists at the National Weather Service said. At one point, the water was so high, it washed away a recorder monitoring Sugar Creek in Milford.
Forecasters said up to another quarter-inch of rain could fall in the area, but likely would cause little damage.
The Vermilion River in Pontiac, where the flood stage is 14 feet, crested at 18.8 feet Wednesday night and stood at 17.7 feet Thursday afternoon, Marsili said.
The Iroquois River just upstream of Watseka crested Wednesday morning at 25.7 feet, nearly 8 feet past flood stage. It stood at 25.1 feet Thursday afternoon, Marsili said.
No data on Sugar Creek was available, because the recording device was washed away.
