CHICAGO — For days, storm-swollen waters have kept Richard Dubois fighting to protect his bungalow along the Fox River. Piling sandbags by day -- enough to turn his and other houses on West Riverside Drive into mini-fortresses against the relentlessly rising Fox -- and then falling into bed exhausted, only to wake repeatedly.
Up at 11 p.m. to fuel the makeshift collection of generators and pumps that act as a final barrier to the river. Another check at 12:30 a.m. and another at 3 a.m. Then up at 7 a.m. to start the sandbagging anew.
"It's like I can't be tired," said Dubois, 47, who runs a paving company. "This is my house, everything I own. I have close to 3,000 sandbags around my house; I'll add 2,000 more if I have to. I'm going to save my house."
West Riverside Drive, a two-block-long peninsula of homes, is but one of dozens of neighborhoods across the Midwest struggling to cope with the effects of a late August drenching that has gone on for the better part of a week.
As residents inspected soaked basements and inundated backyards, it appeared Saturday that the worst of the flooding may have passed. Water lines were slowly receding in Des Plaines, Ill., and forecasts for several area rivers predicted a steady decline in water levels, according to the National Weather Service.
The Chicago area should experience drier, cooler weather until Tuesday, said Casey Sullivan, a weather service meteorologist.
The storms in northern Illinois were part of a powerful system moving through the Upper Midwest for the last week -- stretching from Minnesta to Ohio. The storms have caused extensive damage and are blamed for at least 18 deaths. In addition to an estimated 100,000 without power in Illinios on Saturday, another 100,000 were without power in southern Michigan. Also hard-hit have been Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Like residents of Illinois, they are hoping for a break in coming days.
"Waters have receded in several places," said Des Plaines Police Sgt. Dan Niemann. Unless there was more rain or water coming from the north, Niemann said, roads should open in a day or two. "We're hoping by late Monday or Tuesday we can get things back to normal."
In DeKalb, which experienced some of the worst flooding when the Kishwaukee River peaked at 15.24 feet on Friday, the water had dropped two feet by Saturday. It was expected to continue to go down, according to the weather service. But damage to homes in the area was extensive, and 69 people were staying in a Red Cross shelter Saturday night, according to Lauren Zimmerman, the agency's director of emergency services.
