Quick moving storm, heavy rains keep city departments busy Tuesday morning

Andrew Heiserman
Posted 9/3/19

Large amounts of rain experienced Tuesday morning caused many areas of the city to flood.

Big thunderstorms that brought along with them massive amounts of rain in a such a short amount of time led to creeks overflowing, water in coming into buildings and many streets shut down on Tuesday morning.

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Quick moving storm, heavy rains keep city departments busy Tuesday morning

Posted

ROCHELLE – Large amounts of rain experienced Tuesday morning caused many areas of the city to flood.
Big thunderstorms that brought along with them massive amounts of rain in a such a short amount of time led to creeks overflowing, water in coming into buildings and many streets shut down on Tuesday morning.
Due to all of the flooding, the Rochelle Police Department experienced an extreme increase in the number of calls.
“We were extremely busy during the flooding, much more calls than on a usual day,” said Rochelle Police Chief Eric Higby.
Most of the calls were for vehicles that had become stranded while trying to drive through high water. If the car was reachable, a tow truck would pull it out, but there were a few vehicles that were in so deep they could not be reached until the water receded.
Higby warned against trying to drive through water where cars have already gotten stuck.

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“If you are the third or fourth car in the line and they all look like submarines at this point, then don’t follow them in there,” added Higby.
The city has worked hard to prevent flooding in traditional flood zone areas, but with this storm the volume of rain caused water to stand in locations not seen before.
“Yesterday was right there with the worst I have ever seen, it was even in unusual places we have never seen before,” explained Higby.

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