Skokie trustees voted unanimously Feb. 18 to declare a state of emergency in the village for the next two months following a Feb. 14 water main break that flooded a neighborhood, closed businesses, a mall and schools, required a boil water order and generally disrupted life for the suburb of 65,000 people, plus the northwestern section of Evanston.
The declaration of emergency will be used to assist the village to apply for state and federal relief funds, according to a news release from the village. Mayor George Van Dusen asked residents who had suffered flood damage, business loss or other afflictions to file insurance claims and to contact the village via email with information on the damaged items, an estimate of their value and any related photos. Contact information is available on Skokie.org.
Village officials said information shared with the village is not an application for reimbursement.
“This information is needed to document the flood experience, water outage and financial impact in the village and will assist regional and local officials in requesting disaster assistance, ” a statement from the village said.
The emergency declaration will be in effect until April 7 and can be extended in increments of seven days by the village manager or the mayor and board of trustees, according to the declaration.
At the Village Board meeting, the village’s communications person, public works director and fire chief presented a summary of the the broken water main incident and how the village addressed it in the days afterward.
Public Works Director Max Slankard said the repairs to the water main were done by an outside contracting group because, “it is of such size that it goes beyond the scope and capability of the village’s equipment to handle that.”
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Some residents went to the podium to tell of their experiences during the meeting’s public comment period, where each speaker gets three minutes. Resident Michael Likhite, however, made it clear that he couldn’t encapsulate the experience of having his basement flood four times over into a three minute testimony. He and many of his neighbors on the 9300 block of Bennett Avenue woke up on the morning of Feb. 14 to car alarms from vehicles damaged by the flooding.
“When we awoke Friday morning, (Feb. 14) at 6 o’clock hearing horns honking outside… I came down to one of the scenes I’ve never seen in life (and) I hope to never see again. Our house was encased in ice,” Likhite said.
“Hear that again. Our home was encased in ice,” Likhite repeated for emphasis.
Likhite said he and his family went through most of Feb. 14 alone, and that firefighters did not make it to his door until later in the afternoon.
“We felt hidden. It was getting scary.”
“I wish I could say ‘better late than never, but it (was) too late,” Likhite continued. “If you’ve ever had loss like in a flood or anything — and this is not California fires… we are not the floods of Mississippi, I get that — but we lost a lot of personal mementos, pictures.”
Kathleen Schmidt, a resident on Lyons street, spoke about the post-traumatic stress that has encumbered her family.
“My autistic child said last night she couldn’t sleep ’cause she didn’t want to flood again. My child who was sick from school today because she has anxiety called me five times during the school day to ask if I was okay.”
“I’m getting emotional because my kids are now traumatized,” Schmidt said. “They saw the water getting close — it came within three feet of our house,” she said, adding that her home was not flooded. “They see me in the water and the water rising and they’re freaking out about me and hoping I’m okay.”
Van Dusen empathized with the residents affected by the water main break.
“I know what it’s like to flood, it’s happened to me… I’m not comparing my circumstance with yours, believe me.” Van Dusen told Likhite. “There’s a feeling that you have no control… hopefully we will never have something like this happen again.”
After Schmidt spoke, Van Dusen invited more residents to share their stories with the village.
“I can assure you we’re not the only ones who are interested in finding out what happened and what kind of preventive measures can you take,” Van Dusen said.
