The weather forecast did call for rain on this day, but not
10 inches.  There were homes in Riverside that had over 5
feet of water in the basement and River Forest looked like it
might just be called River town.  Many remember the floods and damage from 1987, when lots of homes were severely damaged and many could not get to work. 

Photos in the afternoon of the rains having fallen swelling the rivers height and more to come.
© Suburban Journals of  Chicago Inc. photos by Scott Posson of Forest Automotive

In 1987 getting across the Des Plaines river was impossible
for several days, this time the only way west for many was Washington Blvd. 

This time the sand bags were out sooner and people rallied faster to lend a hand, especially if you were around in 1987. 
The village crews of River Forest and volunteers were out in flash and getting to work.  That work continued until the
early hours of the morning.  Residents noted that calls went
out to the village crews to return at 3:00 a.m. to build the walls higher.  Storms of this strength are often called 100 year storms, because of their abnormal nature-we don't live in a region of
the world known for monsoons (South East Asia or Malaysia).

It hasn't been a hundred years since 1987, and if you got flooded then this probably seems way too soon for another. 
In the block between Thatcher and Keystone the elevation
drops from 659 feet above sea level to around 639 feet at the corner of Chicago and Thatcher, and that mere 20 feet is more than enough to cause lots of trouble, look at the photos.

Places like Galveston, Texas are only about 6 feet above sea level and lots of Florida is not very high either.  This year has had a lot of "global weirding" and even now there seems to
be a conga chicken dance of storms lined up from the southern
Atlantic ocean,  and one named  "Ike"  brought this last adventure in moisture to our shores of Thatcher.

Flood stage warnings were listed for the Des Plaines river by the national weather service and the warnings will be in effect for several more days.

Traveling in cars has been an added adventure as well with only a handful of local routes taking the traffic from roads flooded.  Harlem was a mess, the expressways were like a Kafka court trip,  and even your handy GPS system that can relate traffic conditions were at a loss for which avenues were flooded or not.

It will all leave in time........

Just a few days after the flood Chicago Avenue was open for

traffic and showed little signs of flooding.