The weekend of September 12 – 14 was one Glenview residents won’t soon forget. Approximately 9.50 inches of rain fell in the Village — the most rain falling in a single period in Chicago area since 1871. The storm and rain caused flash flooding, minor electrical outages (all 400 outages were restored quickly), and downed trees in several areas of town. Particularly vulnerable were residences in flood-prone areas and documented floodplains.

The Village’s storm water drainage systems reached capacity; most storm water detention basins exceeded capacity; the Techny Basin filled to capacity and experienced minor overflow, which affected neighborhoods adjacent to the West Fork of the Chicago Rivers’ North Branch.

As a result, several areas near the this part of the river (between Willow and Longvalley Road) were voluntarily evacuated. And, over the course of the event, ten road segments were temporarily closed.

What Did the Village Do?

Early Saturday morning, Village leadership mobilized the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to coordinate all emergency responses. In short order, off duty personnel were recalled to assist and went to work:

• Public Works responded to calls throughout the Village, removing downed trees across roads or within detention basins, blockading impassable roads, raking out inlets, and providing sand bag stockpiling.
• A 24-hour call center — staffed by Village employees — was quickly established. From September 13-15, the Center received 962 calls. Most of these were related to flooded streets and basements.
• 9-1-1 received 610 calls between 7 a.m. September 13 and 7 a.m. September 15. Dispatch/Police Records also received 1,914 non-emergency calls.
• Between 7 a.m., September 13 and 7 a.m., September 15 Fire/EMS and Police responded to 344 calls.
• The Village made available 336 tons of sand for sandbagging at nine locations throughout Glenview. At Public Works, volunteers from Glenbrook South High School and the Park District helped to bag some sand; at other sites residents could bag their own. The goal was to get the sand out to neighborhoods as quickly as possible — and waiting until all the sand was bagged would have slowed things down considerably.
• Police Officers coordinated road closures and general community safety matters; Fire crews coordinated evacuation efforts and our emergency safety response.
• In cooperation with the Park District, an Emergency Shelter was opened at Park Center to supplement the regional Red Cross Center in Des Plaines. On September 13, more than 30 residents took advantage of the shelter. School District 34 arranged buses to assist residents choosing to evacuate.
• To keep residents informed, several communications links were established including the Village website, E-Glenview, Glenview Television, two door-to-door handouts, four Emergency Telephone Notification System (ETNS) announcements, and placement of “Flood Information” boxes throughout the Village.
• The Village worked with Groot to establish a flood debris pick-up schedule — including an extra Saturday pick up — at no additional cost to residents.

What Was Done to Control Flooding?

Flood control is primarily a regional matter. It is under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD), which is responsible for maintenance of regional waterways and controls all locks, gates and pumps along this waterway.

On Tuesday, October 21 the Village will hold a special workshop on this issue at 7 p.m. at the Police Station, 2500 East Lake Avenue.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A plan announced today by Bank of America will be the most aggressive foreclosure prevention effort ever undertaken by a U.S. bank.

The program, scheduled to start in December, will be open to distressed borrowers who signed up with Countrywide Financial between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2007. Countrywide was acquired by Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) in July.

It came in a legal settlement that the company entered into with the attorney general offices of 11 states, who had sued Countrywide over predatory lending practices, but the company stated that borrowers in all 50 states will be eligible to participate in the program.

“The Countrywide settlement is a watershed moment for loan modification programs,” said Mark Pearce, North Carolina’s Deputy Commissioner of Banks and a member of the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group. “This is, by far, the best [program ever], even better than the FDIC program with IndyMac Bank.”

As part of the initiative, Bank of America will cut monthly housing payments, including mortgage, property taxes and insurance, to no more than 34% of gross income. The move is expected to help keep as many as 400,000 troubled borrowers in their homes.

The program targets holders of subprime adjustable rate mortgage (ARMs), subprime fixed rate loans and option ARMs, but prime and Alt-A borrowers, who did not document their income, will be eligible as well.

No other foreclosure prevention effort has aimed to keep borrowers’ house payments so low.

“[The program's] affordability is far better than any other program out there,” said Rick Simon, spokesman for Bank of America.

By contrast, the much heralded foreclosure-prevention initiative announced in August by the FDIC for customers of IndyMac Bank, the subprime lender that the agency took over in July, said it will keep borrower payments to no more than 38% of gross income.

“This is the biggest mandatory modification of loans in U.S. history,” said Jerry Brown, attorney general of California, the state with the largest number of borrowers who may benefit from the settlement. “Of course, we never saw such a big rip-off by any other company either.”

According to Simon, the Countrywide program will proactively screen all of its borrowers for eligibility, and then contact them directly to offer loan workouts. No prepayment penalties or modification fees will apply. But the program can’t help every Countrywide borrower. Some, because of illness, divorce, job loss and the like, simply won’t be able to afford any reasonable mortgage payment.

Simon added that Bank of America is training personnel and putting systems into place that it hopes will enable staff to deal with a large number of mortgages all at once.

The new program comes with a price tag of $8.4 billion, but Simon says that it will cost much less than foreclosing on homes en masse.

As the credit crisis continues, more and more lenders and mortgage servicers are coming to grips with the fact that preventing a foreclosure is usually cheaper than going through the repossession process and then reselling the property in a declining market.

Depending on each borrower’s circumstances, Bank of America might freeze or lower a loan’s interest rate or even cut the principal loan balance. The bank said it will also participate in the government’s Hope for Homeowners program, a provision of the housing rescue bill which went into effect Oct. 1 and makes FHA-insured loans available for delinquent borrowers.

The announcement of the program came on the heels of Friday’s approval of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, a measure which has been criticized for failing to address the foreclosure crisis head on.

The hope is that other lenders and servicers will follow Countrywide’s lead.

“Now that we’ve gotten this with Countrywide, I would expect that we’ll be talking with other major servicers to implement similar programs in the near future,” said North Carolina Deputy Commissioner of Banks Mark Pearce, who worked on this settlement.

But he and other members of the the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group have been pushing other lenders to do something this drastic for months, without much luck.

“So far, they have failed to show the leadership required to get it done,” said Pearce. “I hope, having the market leader do this will spur the other servicers to greater action.”

In changing times with a very volatile economic market, the impacts of the “bailout” prove that our national financial system has been tarnished but the hope for repair is the result of the country’s ability to stand up and fight through the turmoil. The economic repercussions of the “bailout” while, hopeful, may still not be enough to help our housing market recover from the immense distress we face as a nation. However, with the economy in such a difficult place, it seems that there is no other quick immediate solution to save what is left. The market is oversaturated with listing inventory and this “bailout” will hopefully deplete the mass housing for sale. In a buyer’s market, it is critical to move inventory quickly to stabilize the market conditions so that prices can equalize. The rescue plan will provide solutions for distressed home-owners and possibly even save the mass thousands out there who face foreclosure. Even so, the possibility of resolution from financial destruction is very real for the mass public so the immediate effects of the “bailout” may not impact the majority population who is suffering and losing their homes. It is hard to really predict the consequences of this emergency plan but the fact that our national governmental body has stepped in is a significant indicator that our country is in some pretty significant trouble. Our best bet is to listen closely, assess our personal situations and consult professionals who can direct and advise us to a better place. This economy and this market should correct itself and now with a helping hand should put us on the path to recovery. Who knows, this may be the case or this may just be the beginning. Regardless, our confidence should rest in our own decisions based on our own personal scenarios. While we depend on our country to do the right thing, the only final judge of that is ourselves.

Regard to our shifting market,

Helen Oliveri

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — After two weeks of contentious and often emotional debate, the federal government’s far-reaching and historic plan to bail out the nation’s financial system was on the verge of enactment Friday.

President Bush, speaking less than an hour after the House voted 263 to 171 to pass the bill, is expected to sign it later Friday.

“By coming together on this legislation, we have acted boldly to prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country,” said Bush.

The House vote followed a strong lobbying push by the White House and other supporters of the bill. The House rejected a similar measure on Monday – a defeat that shocked the markets and congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle.

The legislation, which would allow the Treasury Secretary to purchase as much as $700 billion in troubled assets in a bid to kick-start lending, would usher in one of the most far-reaching interventions in the economy since the Great Depression.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said he welcomed the House vote. “The legislation is a critical step toward stabilizing our financial markets and ensuring an uninterrupted flow of credit to households and businesses,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he would act swiftly but “methodically” to carry out the plan.

“The broad authorities in this legislation, when combined with existing regulatory authorities and resources, gives us the ability to protect and recapitalize our financial system as we work through the stresses in our credit markets,” Paulson said.