Waterways remain closed

From the Saturday, June 21, 2008 edition of the Northwest Herald:

Waterways remain closed
By DIANA SROKA - dsroka@nwherald.com

While boaters and waterway officials are eager for the Chain O' Lakes and Fox River to reopen, meteorologists say not so fast.

The weekend forecast includes a chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms through Sunday night, said Tim Halbach, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The good news: The rainfall isn't expected to severely slow the rate of flood recession. The bad news: Officials don't know whether waterways will reopen by the Fourth of July.

"If we can keep dry weather and keep rainfall light, it'll give the system a chance to recover," said Ingrid Ruttendjie, executive director of the Fox Waterway Agency. "Everyone that's dealing with this is fully aware that the Fourth of July is coming up."

In the meantime, cleanup operations continue, but the county won't receive any federal funding because Gov. Rod Blagojevich has not declared the county a disaster area.

Barry Valentine, director of the McHenry County Emergency Management Agency, said the county had not experienced the amount of damage required to be declared a disaster area. The flooding last August qualified, but the damage was three or four times as bad, he said.

"We not only had it on the river, we had it in Woodstock, Crystal Lake, Union, Marengo, and all these other places that we didn't have this time around," Valentine said.

It's not that people are not suffering because of flooding; it's that the threshold just hasn't been met, he said. And even though the county was declared a disaster area last August, federal funding didn't come through, he said.

Instead, residents can expect to see recovery activity on the local level.

Fox Waterway Agency crews on the water will spend the weekend securing debris to the shoreline to create wildlife habitat or transporting it to agency headquarters to be ground into mulch, Ruttendjie said.

The villages of Antioch and Fox Lake will provide free disinfectant kits to residents starting Monday, and the Lake County Emergency Management Agency is planning a mosquito abatement program. Algonquin, Dorr, Greenwood, McHenry and Nunda townships also will have mosquito abatement programs, according to the McHenry County Department of Health.

Blagojevich has ordered a 60-day moratorium on insurance cancellations for policyholders who were impacted by the recent storms and flooding. However, the moratorium applies only to families and businesses in the counties declared disaster areas since June 10 – which does not include McHenry County.

The Harvard State Bank also is aiding in flood relief by raising funds to benefit the Chicago Chapter of the American Red Cross, which includes McHenry County.

Donations will be accepted in Harvard at the bank headquarters, 35 N. Ayer St., and Sullivan's Foods, 1299 Division St. Donations also will be accepted at the Hebron Community Financial Center, 9605 Main St., in Hebron.

• Northwest Herald reporter Sarah Sutschek contributed to this report.