The Crystal Lake City Council spent a huge chunk of change to stop the flooding of North Shore Drive.
The total cost was $762,000 with State taxpayers kicking in $482,000 through the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
From driving on a dry road this morning about 10:30, I’d say that goal was accomplished.
The problem seems to have shifted westward, however.
The first home on the right after the newly-widen channel between Dog Lake and Crystal Lake had three feet of black water in the basement. The couple’s daughter said it was sewage.
One of the neighbors said that the water being pumped out was being replaced by water flowing in the basement drain and would continue to do so until the level of Dog Lake dropped below the basement’s elevation.
A Woodland Drive neighbor said the water from Dog Lake was black with mud between eight and nine in the morning.
Woodland Drive did not have to be opened to North Shore traffic today, however, as it was in 2007.
A blue heron stood in the shallows near the end of the ditch near the storm water drain outlet.
Carp were swimming upstream as they had on Cress (Crystal) Creek a few weeks earlier. (At that time grade school kids were netting the carp and putting them across the wire barrier into Crystal Lake. One girl about eight was so excited that she had “saved that fish.”)
A man on Oak Court, located just north of the lake, whose home is between that street and North Shore Drive, said both of his craw spaces flooded for the first time.
I told him that a homeowner on Nash Road across the street from Lundahl Junior High School though that the sluice gate at Crystal Lake’s outlet should be shut.
He replied that would be like putting a dam across Dog Lake.
Then, he said with a smile. “But they already did that.”
City Engineer Erik Morimoto offered a different take gained from a city engineer who was on the North Shore. He reported that homeowners were saying the water level went down faster than in previous flooding.
Meanwhile, downstream, Crystal (or Cress, depending on your preference) Creek has a good flow.
Lakewood Village pumps were running.
One street up on Essex there was water where I have never seen it before.
On Riverside Drive (next to the creek) a friend was standing next to his house and I asked if he had flooding.
“My basement looks like a pool,” he replied.
I asked what the flags were for in front of his house.
He said that the city was replacing the water main.
He added something pithy about the city’s not doing something about drainage instead.
Downstream, the Crystal Lake Country Club’s parking lot was under water.
Farther downstream, part of South Elementary School’s play ground was submerged.
So was much of the Lundahl Middle School property.
Residents on Nash Road across from Lundahl had water in their basements.
Earlier in the day, the following two photos were taken by a neighbor across the street from Lundahl:
And the City Public Works Department had the biggest pump of the day at Nash and St. Andrews.
And below you can see where the water will eventually end up after flowing through the undersized drainage pipes between the Country Club and St. Andrews Lane:
Think some folks from the North Shore will show up at the next Crystal Lake City Council meeting?
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