Emergency personnel learn from floods

BY BRIAN L. HUCHEL
Commercial-News

TILTON June 23, 2008 11:48 am

— Preparations for next time are part of one village’s work to deal with recent flooding in Vermilion County.
The county saw its share of ups and downs during the drenching weather that crossed the state the first week of June.
Tilton took the brunt of the rains June 7 when heavy rains flooded 16 families out of their homes, forcing their evacuation. A couple of homes were later deemed unlivable by the Red Cross.
Tilton Mayor David Phillips, looking at what the rest of the state has had to deal with, said his village held up well to the overflow of rains.
To try to help make sure the creek waters do not rise again, Phillips said he has contacted the Illinois Department of Transportation about cleaning up debris. Calls also are expected to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency about silt removal from the creek bed.
“I don’t think anyone can really prepare,” he said, adding “All in all, I think, we fared well.”
In addition, Tilton is in the process of smoking the sewer systems to identify any illegal connections by residents.
Overall, the county topped its average for May, with almost 1½ inches of additional rainfall for the month. June was the big month, however, recording 9 inches of rain as of June 15, a little more than 4 inches more than the average. Almost 8 inches of that came June 3-7.
The resulting conditions included flooding corn and soybean fields across the county, as well as rising levels in the North Fork, Middle Fork and Vermilion rivers.
All things considered, the flooding situations were handled smoothly by the Danville/Vermilion County Emergency Management Agency, according to Director Ted Fisher.
Looking back at the last few weeks, he pointed to the education of residents as the area needing the most improvement.
Residents’ expectations — whether for insurance or federal assistance — were wrong oftentimes.
“Probably the one thing is the public needs to be more aware of is the need to have flood insurance,” Fisher said.
The availability of funding from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency also was a miscalculated idea by locals.
“They need to understand it takes a lot of damage for IEMA to start throwing money around,” Fisher said.
He added Vermilion County experienced small-scale problems compared to other nearby counties hit by the continuous drenching rains.
Counties such as Clark and Coles and most recently Edgar County were deemed disaster areas by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, opening up both places to state resources to assist in their recovery efforts.
Fisher, whose office along Georgetown Road received a number of phone calls from residents, said people also tried to compare the assistance doled out to Vermillion County, Ind., to what Vermilion County should receive. He explained the Indiana counties work under a different set of rules.
There was a slight holdup waiting for villages to turn in damage statistics to EMA, which forwards the numbers on the IEMA, Fisher said. Volunteers during the day for EMA also were in short supply during the flood work.
Phillips said city employees worked around the clock the first few days trying to help residents deal with the waters. Now, assessments of damage and debris continue to roll in from Tilton properties.
“We’re adding numbers every day to the cost,” he said.
New help is becoming available for low-income homeowners trying to handle repair or improvements to their home.
Rural Development, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is offering loans up to $20,000 for residents at 1 percent interest.
Requirements include living in a community of 20,000 or smaller, meeting income guidelines and having an acceptable credit history. In Vermilion County, the adjusted household income limit for a family of four ranges from $26,100 to $32,350.
Call the Rural Development office at 352-3536 ext. 4 for more information.