In cities across the United States today, infrastructure professionals find themselves at “ground zero,” contending with swelling urban populations that strain aging systems (energy, water, transportation & built environment). Even in Chicago, where the city’s overall population has been shrinking, concentrations of growth in the downtown area continue to expand. The South Loop population more than doubled in the last decade and the city center has taken on more than 40K new residents in... Read the rest of this entry »

In our April newsletter, we offered tips for spring cleaning your gutters. Now that your gutters are clear and able to catch the rainwater from your roof, let’s talk about where this water is flowing. The gutters connect to downspouts that direct rainwater from the roof down the exterior walls of the home to the ground. The downspouts may discharge into pipes that take water to the sewer system or be disconnected, which is a good way to keep water from overwhelming the sewer and backing up... Read the rest of this entry »

One of the first times Mary Carvlin’s basement filled with rainwater overnight, a local water manager told her something that has, hauntingly, proven true time and time again. He told her that “the thing that makes flooding so traumatic is that when the flood is over, the nightmare is just beginning.” Mary lives in Blue Island, a suburb south of Chicago that saw its heyday back when the primacy of American manufacturing wasn’t yet a memory. Thanks to funding from Cook County, CNT’s RainReady... Read the rest of this entry »

In January, the Village of Midlothian, located in Chicago’s southern suburbs, took the groundbreaking step of adopting the nation’s first RainReady Plan. Midlothian residents have faced chronic flooding for decades, even in moderately sized rainstorms. Our RainReady program’s planning process – hailed as “transformative” in the Chicago Tribune – brought together residents, civic leaders, regional agencies and federal partners to identify community-scale solutions that will stem flooding and... Read the rest of this entry »

Flooding is the most expensive "natural" disaster faced by homeowners across America. Flooding costs communities billions of dollars every year according to damage payouts by insurance companies. Much of the damage can be avoided by smarter, greener infrastructure in our built environments. Read stories of real flood victims below: “It's awful to wade through feces in your own home.  My home was essentially destroyed during Hurricane Sandy, just the biggest storm to come surging... Read the rest of this entry »

When Village of Midlothian residents reached out to CNT’s RainReady℠ program, they sought help with Natalie Creek, a small tributary to the Cal Sag Channel with a terrible history of flooding the surrounding neighborhood. As we began our work with Floodlothian Midlothian and Village Trustees, we learned that flooding wasn’t the only challenge facing the community. Like many of its neighbors, Midlothian was hard hit by the 2009 recession and has been challenged to rebuild its economic base and... Read the rest of this entry »

We are delighted to announce that the City of Chicago is supporting CNT’s education and outreach on rain readiness. Working alongside urban flooding victims themselves, we help people identify practical and affordable improvements to protect their property from urban flooding - approaches that can be implemented in any neighborhood in America. What’s particularly exciting is that CNT’s unique organizing approach – flood victim action through Resident Action Groups  - has caught the... Read the rest of this entry »

The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has been contracted through the City of Chicago’s Residential Flood Assistance Program to provide streamlined flood damage repair and prevention for 70 homes victimized by the April 2013 flooding that crippled parts of Chicago’s south and west sides. Through CNT’s RainReady Home service, each eligible homeowner will receive a free home inspection to identify opportunities for flood repair and prevention. The RainReady Home team will then make... Read the rest of this entry »

What if you could predict where flooding would happen next in your community or get a text alert when basements in your neighborhood are flooding? Often, when flooding occurs, there’s little warning beyond weather forecasts about the presence of flash flooding.  The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) and the Army Corps of Engineers are working together on a new initiative called RainReadySM Alert, a predictive flood monitoring and alert system based on aggregated data from sump... Read the rest of this entry »

The RainReady℠ program, an initiative of the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), has received a $30,000 EPA Environmental Justice Award. The grant will be used to support CNT’s work helping homeowners reduce sewer backups and flooding in Chatham, a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. The work is being done in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  “We’re very grateful to the EPA. This comes at a critical time as cities like Chicago brace for more frequent and severe... Read the rest of this entry »