West Side flooding survivors still wait for sewer help

West Side – Andre Moseley’s Austin basement has been unusable since the summer 2023 floods, which left sewage smells and heavy water damage behind. While Chicago officials say they’re preparing to spend more than $520 million—mostly federal housing dollars—on flood recove

Andre Moseley keeps dealing with the aftermath of summer 2023 as if the city’s clock has stopped at the waterline.

Twice that year, flooding hammered his Austin home and left his basement so saturated that it still carries a stale smell of sewage. “It was horrible,” he said. “It was coming at such a fast rate.”

Moseley had been using the basement as a recreation room. It has been uninhabitable ever since. He received an initial $4,000 from the federal government, but he said it didn’t cover all the repairs—and he doesn’t have flood insurance.

Now he’s hoping for financial help from the city to repair the space. But the city’s plan isn’t likely to start until next year—four years after the historic 2023 floods.

Those floods drenched tens of thousands of homes on Chicago’s West Side, South Side, and nearby suburbs, with 8 to 9 inches of rain over a short period.

The delays matter because the damage isn’t frozen in 2023. Moseley said climate change is contributing to more frequent flooding, with storms dropping more rain over shorter periods of time. And he points to what he says is the weak link in his neighborhood: aging sewer infrastructure meant to keep stormwater and wastewater—from everything flushed down the toilet—from backing up into basements.

He lives in a system even more vulnerable than the rest of the city, which is only designed to hold 2 inches of rain. If the city doesn’t fix the sewer infrastructure, he fears he won’t just be repairing what happened once—he may be fighting new basement flooding.

Chicago’s mayoral administration says it has been confronting exactly that problem. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration acknowledged decades of disinvestment and pledged to spend more than $520 million. mostly federal housing dollars received last year. to respond to the historic flooding. The plan includes addressing aging sewers.

The city also says it plans to allocate $40 million for a home repair program for individuals like Moseley, and it says the program will launch next year.

But residents have already been waiting for three years and are getting impatient. City officials acknowledge it won’t be enough.

“Decades of chronic and disparate underinvestment in the most vulnerable communities put Chicago in the unenviable position of relying on aging and crumbling water infrastructure to contend with increasingly volatile weather events and damaging storms. ” said Meleah Geertsma. director of Clean Water and Equity at the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

Geertsma praised Johnson for tackling the sewers and for acknowledging the bigger problem. She said it will still take more efforts by state and local governments to address what she called a chronic situation. “There’s no way people should be still suffering. ” Princess Shaw. a West Side advocate who has been helping guide residents through government programs aimed at helping flooding survivors. said.

For Moseley, suffering is visible. Furniture and other personal property were ruined. The tiles in his basement are still loose and damaged. The walls show marks from 2 to 3 feet of water. Even the smell hasn’t faded—he said he has to apply bleach.

The problem, city documents say, is bigger than one household.

Austin’s sewer system is around 80 years old, and that’s not even the oldest on the West Side. Just to the south of Austin, the average age of sewers is 91 years old. City sewer pipes in and around Austin. Belmont Cragin. East Garfield Park. Humboldt Park. and West Garfield Park are described as a third of the diameter necessary to carry water away from homes. Some connecting sewers are described as a mere fraction of the size they should be.

In all, the city says there are more than 250 miles of “deficient sewers” on the West Side. Chicago’s local sewers, the city says, are too small to prevent the flooding that Moseley and neighbors received.

Johnson, in a statement to the Sun-Times in April, said, “The infrastructure deficiencies which exacerbated the effects of this storm reflect decades of systemic underinvestment in West Side communities.”

He began promising help shortly after the 2023 storms. His spokespeople say it took time because the process for securing federal money and distributing it is lengthy.

But the city says it now has $520 million—mostly in federal dollars—meant to be spent in the next few years. That money would come on top of another federal infusion: $500 million in emergency aid that officials doled out to about 75,000 residents in 2023.

City Hall points to a plan for flood prevention and recovery in a more than 100-page “action plan. ” described as a blueprint to begin tackling flood challenges. including upgrading sewers to “meet modern standards.” It includes cleaning and replacing outdated sewers and considering building additional water storage under streets.

The city says it also has other priorities aimed at preventing future flooding. Those include increasing natural public places such as parks, planting more trees that can absorb water, increasing permeable spaces—citing 1,900 miles of alleyways—and doing a study to assess stormwater drainage trends.

The storms of 2023, and another storm the following year, exposed the vulnerability of low-income communities on the West Side, which is predominantly Black. The city says in its plan that the floods present health risks as well as economic harm.

“In order to ensure long-term recovery and strengthen future resilience, infrastructure systems must be enhanced to support the demands of storms of similar magnitude,” the plan says.

For Moseley, the gap between planning and living with the damage is the part he can’t ignore. His basement is still uninhabitable. His stench remains stubborn. And even with money now set aside for repairs and sewer upgrades. the city’s home repair timeline still leaves him waiting—past the historic flooding that first brought the water into his life.

Chicago West Side flooding sewer infrastructure Brandon Johnson stormwater federal housing dollars home repair program climate change aging sewers Alliance for the Great Lakes