Portage Park Residents Upset About Persistent Flooding; 'The City Needs To Hear About It'
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Dozens and dozens of basements. All flooded. Again.
Neighbors in Chicago's Portage Park are fed up.
CBS 2's Audrina Bigos went down to their basements and asked if anyone is going to fix it?
CBS 2 went to the neighborhood after dozens and dozens of people posted on Facebook saying their basements were flooded. There were trucks lined up and down the streets. Restoration crews were ready to get to work on the flooded basements.
It's a watery mess in Anthony Citriglia's Portage Park basement.
"We got the fans going in here. Everything from this area got completely flooded. I think we had about three to six inches of water last night," Citriglia said.
And so did his neighbors. Now, all of them left cleaning up.
"The water was bubbling up through this drain. It kept on coming," said Pamela Mundy, who said she got six to eight inches of water.
"The city needs to hear about it and needs to react," Mundy said.
"I've been answering the phone all day. People been calling left and right," said Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th.) "Bottom line is, and I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but three inches of rain in three hours; if you don't have a flood control, that's going to create a problem for you."
Sposato said the city is doing what it can to upgrade the 100-year-old infrastructure. But it takes time.
CBS 2 asked the city's department of water management about this. The agency said it already replaced 166 miles of old sewer mains since 2012. A spokesperson said the department moves flood prone areas up the priority list.
