Sauk Valley declared disaster
Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday declared 12 counties, including Lee, Ogle, Carroll and Whiteside, state disaster areas after heavy rains caused flooding in much of northern Illinois.
The state disaster declaration qualifies communities for federal money for cleanup and rebuilding of damage caused by flooding resulting from a series of thunderstorms Friday night into Saturday.
The other counties are: Cook, DuPage, Henderson, Jo Daviess, Mercer, Rock Island, Stephenson and Winnebago.
In other good news for Carroll County, the Red Cross shelter set up in West Carroll Intermediate School in Thomson, to help nearly 600 Savanna residents evacuated Saturday because of heavy flooding, had no more overnight guests, Red Cross spokeswoman Kasey Kelly said Monday evening.
The agency also is providing snacks and meals from the shelter, so officials will meet today to decide whether it will be closed, Kelly said.
Although Lee and Whiteside counties managed to avoid the worst of the flooding, in Dixon, the road that runs through Page Park, in front of the Dixon High School football field, remained closed Monday.
And the banks of the roiling Rock River, which is swollen with rainwater and closed to all recreation, will not be swept clean this weekend, after all.
Because of flooding conditions, the first Rock River Sweep, planned as a group activity up and down the river Saturday, will occur in individual Illinois towns as they can reschedule, organizer Frank Masterman said Monday.
The group effort was to be the first in a planned annual event for the nonprofit Rock River Sweep.org. As long as the Rock is tended to, it doesn’t really matter when it happens, the river steward said.
“It’ll be like cleaning the different rooms in your house at different times,” Masterman said.
Groups in Byron, Oregon, Grand Detour, Dixon, Sterling and Rock Falls all planned to participate Saturday. Now the cleanup planned from Castle Rock State Park to Grand Detour to Lowell Park in Dixon has been moved to Sept. 11.
No other schedule changes were known Monday, Masterman said.
Even if the river was to be reopened by the weekend, Rock River Sweep would hold off on the volunteer effort until local conditions are safe, he said.
“There’s not a piece of trash out there worth risking life and limb over. This is supposed to be a fun event,” Masterman said.
Those interested in participating in the cleanup effort are urged to keep checking the website www.rockriversweep.org, or Facebook for updates. It lists the participating towns and gives contact information for each section coordinator.
In addition to postponing the Grand Detour portion of the sweep, section coordinators Ron and Judy Lang, of Grand Detour Islands Retreat, have closed their campground indefinitely, Judy Lang said Monday.
Flooding is nothing new for the rustic retreat, which boasts 200 riverfront campsites on islands in the middle of the Rock. This time, though, it has lost all 70 of its picnic tables to this recent flood, and sustained “extensive damage to roads and crossings” connection the islands, according to its website, campinggdir.com.
“We’re definitely under water,” Lang said. “It’s not a happy time for us. We’re just waiting fro the water to go down.”
The campground, planned to be open 7 days a week through Sept. 6, won’t reopen until people can get safely in and out, probably by Sunday or later, she said.
