Rural communities in Fulton County are asking for some federal support after widespread damage from this summer’s torrential downpours.
According to the National Weather Service’s report of the July 15 storms, a derecho brought wind at speeds over 100 mph to the Midwest. The aggressive winds left many across Central Illinois without power, and set up residents for a disastrous downpour.
The report notes the heaviest precipitation that followed, as other parts of the state also faced multiple tornadoes, was about 4 to 7 inches of torrential rain in Fulton and Mason counties.
“There were a lot of sinkholes. It overwhelmed the pumps at our wastewater plant, and we had significant damage to our pumps, and it was probably upwards of $50,000 alone just in the pumps,” said Kent McDowell, mayor of Canton in Fulton County.
McDowell said he can’t give an exact number of Canton homeowners who discovered basements full of sewage, but estimated it at more than a dozen.
“I can tell you that the emotional and the stress of everything was significant to those individuals,” he said.
About a half hour drive away, in the town of Cuba, Mayor Douglas Schmidt estimates more than 100 residents, many who had never seen more than a few inches of water in their basement, faced basements flooded as high as 7 feet.
“We had sewer manholes just busting up out of the ground because of all the pressure from all the water and stuff,” he said. “You know, they were just, I mean people had lakes around their home.”
As some Cuba aldermen explained Thursday to visiting Illinois U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen, the wind had knocked out Cuba’s power, rendering sump pumps inoperable. Without any sort of backup prevention measure and an aging municipal sewer system, the floodwaters rose into homes.
Cuba is not on a floodplain, so it’s rare homeowners have flood insurance as part of their policies. That means thousands of dollars per house in uninsured damages as water heaters, boilers, washers, dryers, and furnaces were submerged in waste and rainwater. Those costly appliances now sit baking in the sun in lime green GFL Environmental dumpsters that Cuba city staff told Sorensen they had spent more than $7,000 on renting, so far.
Along a country road in between Cuba and Canton, just south of the town of Bryant, a culvert was washed away by the storm. The result is a gaping chasm on North Bethel Road, where the gravel path drops sharply off about 30 feet down into a creek.
Canton area officials estimate the reconstruction of the road could approach $600,000 with harvest, and an urgent need for efficient transportation, just a few months away.
Fulton County Emergency Services Disaster Agency Director Chris Helle said that’s a cost Liverpool Township, and its population of just under 600, will likely be unable to cover.
“We need FEMA to step up,” he told Sorensen. “There’s just no other way around it.
Sorensen, a freshman Democrat representing Illinois’ 17th District, had visited Fulton County to meet with Helle, McDowell and Schmidt, survey the storm damage and learn more about the barriers standing between small, rural communities and the assistance they need to recover after a storm.
According to Greg Nimmo, recovery division chief of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency [IEMA], there’s a lot that goes into qualifying for disaster aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA.]
Put simply, a weather event has to do roughly $23.6 million dollars of uninsured damage across the state for it to qualify for a disaster proclamation and “public” assistance from FEMA. “Public,” in this case, means municipalities and local governments. “Individual” assistance, which are funds that can go directly to a person for damage to their property, has a different threshold. That's calculated by applying a FEMA algorithm that includes the 2020 Census population of any given county.
Nimmo told Sorensen that totaling the damage and determining who and what are eligible for these funds can be a complicated and lengthy process.
Additionally, the $23.6 million threshold isn’t the same for every state. Nimmo said that threshold is determined by a state’s total taxable resources. For example, he said, Illinois is a $1 trillion state, while neighboring Missouri is around $33 billion.
These thresholds also were a point of contention when the Fulton County village of Bryant was seeking assistance last summer, after a tornado tore through the town.
This model, Fulton County ESDA Director Helle argues, is flawed. Especially when disasters hit the central and southern part of the state, away from clusters of taxable resources further north and in Cook County.
“I’m hoping we can use this as a tool to educate FEMA and our legislators on why the thresholds that we currently face are ridiculous,” said Helle. “It’s problematic at best. It’s not fair to the communities. It’s not fair to the people. It is something that is not achievable and it’s ridiculous.”
During his visit, Sorensen seemed convinced of the same.
“This is a case example of how we peel back the books, how we look at how, you know what? In the system today, it doesn’t work,” he said, standing in front of the chasm in Bethel Road. “So what are the fixes? What are the things that I can take back to Washington to make sure that we can fix this.”
Sorensen believes finding a fix is particularly important, as serious weather events become more common.
“We’re getting more of these, 4-inch per rains, 4-inch per hour rains, more of those types of heavy rainfall events,” he said. “That means that we’re going to see more of these types of situations, and so we have to plan ahead for those and not just expect a quick and swift response after it’s done.”
There will still be some time before there are answers about the response to the July storms. Nimmo said IEMA is still working to total the damage, submit a report and get an emergency declaration rolling. The deadline is Aug. 15, but Nimmo expects an extension.
It’s unclear exactly what form Sorensen’s advocacy will take. He said his objective now is “to go and find solutions.” Some Canton officials joked he should “text the president.”
Mayor Schmidt and mayor McDowell are hopeful that the meetings Thursday will help convey a message to Washington: get some wheels turning on rethinking how FEMA doles out its community support after a natural disaster.
The potential project list is long. Canton could use sewer separation projects to keep basements from flooding again, the pumps need fixing, the culvert on Bethel Road needs to be refilled. Cuba is full of residents in need of new appliances and the cost of cleanup is growing every day.
“I hope people listen,” said McDowell. “I think the congressman listened and I hope he takes that message back, which I am confident that he will. Yeah, I, you know, you can always hope that good things can happen. I mean all you can do is try.”
