WGN: Quigley Assesses Flood Damage
The following is a transcription from a WGN story on flood damage in Albany Park on Friday, April 19, 2013.
Reporter Dan Ponce: Hi Mika, well look it's not as bad as here as it is where Julian is right now but the folks here in Albany Park dealing with a lot of water it shouldn't be, a lot of flooded basements, and in some cases the heat was even knocked out. Take a look at this wall of sandbags here next to the north side of the Chicago River. Volunteer city works have done a nice job. This wall stretches a good two hundred to three hundred yards in either direction here so hopefully it'll hold up if the north branch of the Chicago spills over. Take a look at the river right now at this hour. I can tell you probably in the last hour and half since I've been here it doesn't appear that the river is rising very quickly but that obviously could change here in the next couple of hours and through the night here. Let's go to the video from a short while ago. Mayor Emanuel in the neighborhood here. He showed up here about four o'clock to meet with neighbors and local emergency responders to discuss the city's response to this problem. As I mentioned before there were some instances where the heat was knocked out in this neighborhood because of the flooded basements knocking out some of the furnaces so workers from people's gas have been here as well trying to get that heat back on. Ah Congressman Mike Quigley was also here today, talking about the efforts to secure some of those federal dollars. Mayor Emanuel also spoke about the strong need to secure local money as well, to get this neighborhood back on track.
Mayor Emanuel: There has been a lot of work done in the past months. I remember when I was congressman the flood that was here so obviously a lot more work has to be done. That's what I was just talking with the staff about, which is to get the resources here, where the curve is on the river, we can rechannel that so that you actually prevent all the type of flooding here. So there's more work to be done, through state money, local money, department of water and sanitation district funds.
Mike Quigley: I spent the day traveling the western part of my district- Hinsdale, Elmhurst and of course Albany Park. The devastating storm that took place in the last couple of days needs our immediate attention, and the governor took the first step declaring it a disaster area but now it's up to us to make sure that FEMA gets the money in people's hands to recover from this.
Ponce: Congressman Quigley says those FEMA dollars can be particularly elusive but he is doing everything he can to try to secure those dollars for Chicago. Looks like this wall is holding up here should the water continued to rise. As I said it looks like the water is leveling here off but that could change here overnight. Live in Albany Park, Dan Ponce WGN News.