It’s wet.
How wet?
An attempt is being made to save Bernotas Middle School’s gym floor after it got wet. The fans are blowing.
The water was 10-12 inches deep on North Shore Drive on Monday at noon—higher than when the city Public Works Department dug the ditch.
The driver of this low-slung car is a young woman. I guess young people don’t know that one should drive slowly, if at all, thought deep water like this.
The public works guys were trying to build a dike out of sand banks and plastic on the north side of North Shore Drive to keep the water back.
Furnaces in craw spaces are now water damaged.
Two pumps were running full blast. One appeared to be six inches and the other 3 or 4. In addition, the ditch dug thirteen days ago actually had water running through it, even though the difference in elevation between North Shore Drive and the lake is only 1¼ to 1½ inches. It only ran like a little brook for the last ten feet or so before entering Crystal Lake.
You can see water surging through the existing storm sewer. When is enters Crystal Lake, it does so through a basement window well. The shape is quite well outlined by the bulging water.
The recharge area behind the Main Beach parking lot is as full as people can remember. (Carl Nelson, who recently died in his 90’s, told me cattails used to grow there.)
There is a rain warning attached to the entrance booth at the Main Beach from the McHenry County Health Department warning the water may be unsafe for swimming.
The Crystal Lake Park District has removed the grating that was installed across the outlet to Cress Creek at the behest of the Crystal Lake Anglers Club.
It seemed to be working fine when I looked at it before removal, but the flow was faster after it was taken down.
Water is surging through the pipe under Lake Avenue.
The warning signs to stay away are appropriate.
The Village of Lakewood has pumps going 24-hours a day at Broadway and Riverside to keep water from flowing back into its old storm sewer system from Cress Creek.
One man I talked to on Broadway had seven pumps running in an attempt to get rid of knee-deep water in his basement.
There is standing water on some lawns on my street of Meridian between Broadway and Lake Avenue. (I am so thankful our home is built on a small rise. Good choice of location, Dad.)
The Crystal Lake Country Club entrance road seems to have been covered with water yesterday morning. 
Its sidewalk to the tennis courts is under a couple of inches of water.
West Beach was down to 8 feet of sand.
Naoki Kamijima Park, located across from the Country Store where this ever-so-friendly man was murdered and west of the Lakewood Village Hall is under water.
The stream entering Crystal Lake on the northwest side of the lake has never been higher, according to a woman who grew up next to it. One of the boat piers on the east side of the stream is under water.
Lippold Park is not a suitable location for the CABA baseball tournament. The outfields of several diamonds have water near the fences.
The bike trail is under three feet of water at one point, I was told.
One outhouse is surrounded by water. Thank goodness a concrete box surrounds it underground and the sewage is separately contained.
It appears Mother Nature is saying, “Give me back my wetlands.”
A substantial part of the commercial lot on the west side Route 14 across the street from where Woodstock Street ends and north of the property McHenry County has purchased for its new animal control shelter is inundated. I think its owner is one that sued successfully to exceed the 
Crystal Lake Watershed Ordinance’s 20% building/ parking lot limitation.
You can see it is for sale.
The clouds still threaten.
And both the Crystal Lake and McHenry County College water engineers see no problem with increasing the rate of flow to Crystal Lake.
All pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.
The water in and around Crystal Lake is not as high as it was in the third week of August last year, but it is getting pretty high.
The one pier I could find, Dick Vogelman’s at Lakewood’s Gate 7, was not quite under water.
The water on North Shore Drive, covers only the edges in a couple of places, not the whole road like last year.
It is blocked by a gate, but, if the need arises, traffic can flow like it did last year.
Last year, it looked like this.
And permanent pipes have been put under the road and a pretty wide ditch dug. In the picture above, North Shore Drive is in the background.
From the mud I picked up on my shoes while walking along side to the lake, I’d say it was only recently completed.
It certainly is more substantial, especially wider, than the ditch dug rapidly last year by Crystal Lake Public Works Department employees, quickly supplemented by hoses with pumps, but the drop from North Shore Drive still is very slight.
Run-off will not be gushing into Crystal Lake.
There seems to be more of an effort this year filter out particulates.
You can see how the hose emptied right into Crystal Lake last year.
