Skokie's April 18 Flooding 'Much Worse' than Wednesday, Director Says

Skokie Public Works crews responded to 159 calls during Wednesday's flooding and storm aftermath, with 67 of those for basement backups.

That's about one-third of the number they handled for the April 18 flood, when just under 500 calls came in. Of those, 325 were for basement backup.

"The April 18 event was much worse than yesterday's (Wednesday's) event in Skokie," said Max Slankard, Skokie's Director of Public Works, who provided those figures, in an email.

Calls continue to come in on Thursday.

"We know from past experience that only a certain percentage of those who experience basement backups will actually call in and report it, so the true number is always higher than the number that call in," Slankard said.

The village had four power outages, and three were caused by Monday evening's wind storms, and one which occurred early Wednesday during the heavy rainstorm. The Wednesday outage left 725 customers in the area approximately between Dempster and Church, Gross Point Road to Skokie Boulevard, without power. Power was restored by 9 a.m., Slankard said.