Flash Flooding in Illinois, July 10, 2000

Thunderstorms brought heavy rain and strong winds to the area in the early morning hours. Another round of storms brought more heavy rain around dawn that caused flash flooding. In northeast LaSalle, southern DeKalb and western Kendall Counties flooding occurred in Lake Hoilday and in subdivisions around Sandwich. Flooding of streets, basements and yards occurred. There was a newspaper report of up to 7 inches of rain in Sandwich. Heavy rain and flooding also occurred in Grundy, Will and Kankakee Counties. Morris had 5.61 inches, Joliet had 3.75 inches, Braidwood and Peotone had 4.7 inches and Kankakee had 4.3 inches. Morris was hardest hit with $265,000 in damage. Almost all of the property damage was due to heavy flooding in basements of homes and businesses. Nearly 15,000 electricity customers were without power for twelve hours. Flooding closed U.S. highway 6 for several hours, and two county roads in Wauponsee Township were washed out. In Will County there was flooding of creeks, streets, viaducts and basements. Illinois Route 59 was closed at the viaduct in Plainfield. Essington Road was closed in Joliet and Laraway Road was flooded south of Joliet. U.S. 45 in Frankfort was closed. In Kankakee, streets, viaducts, basements, creeks and retension ponds flooded. Flood waters ripped up 50 feet of pavement on Broadway Street. There was also street and basement flooding in St. Anne.