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Illinois Residents Seek Long-Term Solutions to Flooding

The goal is preventing any more damage from flooding, something that happens every time there is substantial rainfall.

(TNS) - While most residents of the Greene County village of Hillview were able to return home Sunday night after levee breaks flooded the town earlier in the day, the problems have not disappeared with the receding water.

Village trustees are making decisions on the repair of damage caused by the flooding. About a dozen houses were evacuated and six people had to be rescued after becoming stranded by the floodwaters from Hurricane Creek, which runs through the town of about 200.

Now, the village is faced with cleanup and major repair work. For starters, restoring water to the residents.

A water main break caused by the flooding will cost the village about $10,000 to fix, but Trustee Connie Bugg said the main will be fixed, with repairs starting today.

“Our main priority is to get water to our residents,” Bugg said.

Along with the Hillview Board of Trustees, representatives from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Greene County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers met to assess the damage and evaluate options.

For trustees, the concern is preventing any more damage from flooding, something Trustee Richard Long said happens every time there is substantial rainfall.

While the levee does not break every time, Long said flooding is common and it’s just a question of how serious it is.

Working with Illinois Emergency Management Agency and Sen. Sam McCann of Carlinville, the board hopes to get a mitigation plan in place to alleviate flooding in the future.

“We want to take a look at the lay of the land, come up with and put a long-term plan in place,” McCann said. “It’s not something that can be done in a week — it’s going to take a while.”

Bugg said it is important that the village find a solution.

“For our village, we have to eliminate the water taking over our town,” she said.

With more rain forecast for the area, the village is short on time.

Greene County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency director Cale Hoesman and Illinois Emergency Management Agency regional coordinator Stan Krushas, the immediate concern is what the village has to do to protect residents from major flooding now until a long-term plan can be established.

“I want the citizens to be safe. I want any workers to be safe,” Hoesman said.

Hoesman said if the village didn’t come up with an immediate plan to fix the levee, he’d have to recommend an evacuation of the town — something none of the residents want.

Bugg was the first trustee to recommend constructing a temporary levee that will offer some protection from the rising waters.

“It’s for the safety of the residents,” Bugg said. “It may not be a large amount of water (without the levee), but regardless, it’s water and children, elderly and other people may not be able to leave their homes. It’s a temporary resolution to a bigger problem.”

Following the repair of the water main, the village — with the help of several agencies — will place sandbags along the broken portions of the levee.

Fixing the immediate concerns and implementing a long-term plan costs money, something trustees say the village doesn’t have.

“We’re broke,” Long said.

Bugg agreed.

“Our biggest concern, or mountain, is our fiscal ability to get things done,” she said. “We have such a low revenue stream.”

McCann said he is trying to work with several agencies to get funding to help cover the cost of the water main repair and levee construction.

“I working … to find them some funding,” McCann said. “I don’t know yet what that’s going to yield.”

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