{"id":339531,"date":"2025-10-29T00:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/339531\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T00:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:25:11","slug":"chicago-illinois-appeal-trump-denial-of-flooding-disaster-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/339531\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago, Illinois appeal Trump denial of flooding disaster aid"},"content":{"rendered":"

The city of Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois are appealing President Donald Trump\u2019s denial<\/a> last week of a disaster declaration that would have unlocked federal financial assistance for survivors and public repairs after heavy rains and flooding in the state in July and August.<\/p>\n

A joint news release on Tuesday noted that flooding from the storms on July 25-28 and Aug. 16-19 caused \u201cwidespread property damage, prolonged power outages, and significant disruptions to transportation and essential services\u201d across Illinois. The heavy rains displaced residents<\/a>, left thousands<\/a> without electricity, led to collapsed ceilings from water damage, flooded basements and roadways, overflowed rivers<\/a>, broken boilers, furnaces and other large appliances, and triggered ground stops<\/a> at Midway and O\u2019Hare International airports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say, Illinois is not alone. They\u2019ve rejected requests from a number of states this year already,\u201d said Andy Winkler, managing director of housing and infrastructure policy at the\u00a0Washington-based\u00a0Bipartisan Policy Center<\/a> and manager of the\u00a0think tank\u2019s Disaster Response Reform Task Force. \u201cThis batch of rejections \u2014 it looks more political, but it is consistent with what they\u2019ve been doing across the board, to really only approve the highest-profile disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, as climate change has fueled more intense events from flooding to wildfires, the federal government has taken on a larger financial responsibility for natural disaster recovery. But that approach is being curtailed under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now are very abruptly shifting the financial burden of disaster recovery directly onto states and local governments,\u201d Winkler said.<\/p>\n

According to an Associated Press report, the administration\u2019s decisions have fallen mostly along party lines, with Trump touting on social media last week that he approved aid for Alaska, which he \u201cwon BIG\u201d in the last three elections. \u201cI will never let you down,\u201d he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump also approved disaster declarations for Nebraska, North Dakota and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota. He denied requests from Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Vermont and has also denied an\u00a0appeal from Maryland after the state was denied a disaster declaration for May flooding<\/p>\n

When asked why the states were denied, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Trump was \u201censuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement \u2014 not substitute \u2014 their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Illinois, preliminary damage assessments in affected jurisdictions included Chicago and Aurora, as well as Cook, Will, Kane, Boone, McHenry, Jersey and Calhoun counties.<\/p>\n

Trump clinched the majority vote<\/a> in the latter four counties during last year\u2019s presidential election \u2014 with over 70% of the vote in Jersey and Calhoun in south central Illinois \u2014 fueling discussions about how the politicization of federal aid is not only harming blue states but also supporters of the current administration.<\/p>\n

Winkler said the impact on Trump voters has been a major sticking point for red North Carolina counties affected by flooding from Hurricane Helene<\/a> last year that are still waiting for federal reimbursements<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>for disaster recovery money that has already been spent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if people will blame the president personally,\u201d Winkler said. \u201cMy bigger concern is that it further erodes the confidence that people have in government and its ability to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement to Stateline<\/a>, Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said: \u201cThe Federal Government focuses its support on truly catastrophic disasters \u2014 massive hurricanes, devastating earthquakes, or wide-scale attacks on the homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes added that state and local governments \u201coften remain an impediment to their own community\u2019s resilience,\u201d and called on states to take on a more extensive role, according to Stateline, and have \u201can appetite to own the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local leaders in Illinois and other states are already scrambling to address the growing dangers of extreme weather fueled by climate change.<\/p>\n

To appeal the president\u2019s denial and strengthen the request for aid, the city\u2019s Office for Emergency Management and Communications and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency are asking residents and businesses to share additional evidence<\/a> of new or previously unreported information on damages and needs through Nov. 7.<\/p>\n

\"MayorMayor Brandon Johnson gives a hug to Aguirre Matilde as he tours a flood affected area and talks with residents following two days of heavy rain in the 5700 block of South Campbell in Chicago on Aug. 19, 2025. (Antonio Perez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

After the mid-August floods, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson surveyed storm damage in the Gage Park neighborhood. He proposed a few quick solutions: adding sensors in drains, planting thousands of trees and more aggressively clearing pipes.<\/p>\n

But, ultimately, the mayor said the city\u2019s drainage system and infrastructure are insufficient and in need of repairs, and that prevention will require investments like progressive revenue<\/a> \u2014 <\/strong>or \u201cpay what you can\u201d tax systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll bring it to the residents and people can decide if we want to remain stagnant and continue to get what we have received, or do we want to press forward \u2026 so that families who are hurting from these floods don\u2019t have to worry every time it rains,\u201d he told reporters at the time.<\/p>\n

After storms caused wind damage across the Chicago region on July 24, a slow-moving line of storms with torrential rainfall the next day led to several instances of flash flooding across parts of Chicago, according to the National Weather Service<\/a>. A weather station at Midway observed 3.25 inches of rain for the day \u2014 most of it falling over 3.5 hours.<\/p>\n

According to Cook County officials, Chicago, Burbank, Justice and Summit were among the hardest-hit municipalities in the county through July 28. When the county and Chicago issued a disaster proclamation nine days later, residents had filled out over 3,000 surveys reporting damage.<\/p>\n

The weekend of Aug. 16-17, a long line of severe thunderstorms that swept across Chicago and its suburbs left more than 60,000 Commonwealth Edison customers without power<\/a>. Across the western and southern Chicago metropolitan area, local rain rates<\/a> of 2 to 4.5 inches per hour were observed.<\/p>\n

Lee Carlaw, lead meteorologist at the weather service\u2019s office in Chicago, told the Tribune<\/a> then that the rain likely saturated the soil, making conditions more favorable for flash flooding through Aug. 19.<\/p>\n

During storms the next two days, rainfall totals were \u201chighly variable,\u201d from half an inch in downtown Chicago to 3 to 4 inches in the south suburbs, Carlaw said. Some locations in Cook and Will counties, such as Oak Forest, Lockport and Oswego, received anywhere between 6 and 9 inches of rain over a 72-hour period<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the weather service<\/a>, radar estimated that hourly rain rates on Aug. 18 at times approached 2 to 4 inches, resulting in numerous instances of flash flooding due to how fast it fell onto saturated soil and concrete urban environments, preventing it from being absorbed into the ground. After the storms passed, the city\u2019s Department of Water Management Commissioner Randy Conner called the rain a \u201c100-year\u201d downpour.<\/p>\n

A week after the August flooding, Johnson and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle signed disaster proclamations in what Johnson called \u201ca necessary step\u201d to help \u201cour most vulnerable neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to local officials, some areas in Chicago were already recovering from the July floods when they were hit by the August storms. Less than three days later, more than 4,000 surveys in the city and suburban Cook County had been filled out by residents who had experienced damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear that these massive events are occurring and people are not prepared; they\u2019re at high risk,\u201d Winkler said.<\/p>\n

State and local officials are urging residents affected by the rain and flooding on July 25-28 or Aug. 16-19 to fill out a self-assessment survey that will open Wednesday at 8 a.m. and will close Nov. 7 on the state\u2019s website at iemaohs.illinois.gov\/recovery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They are also asking residents and business owners to share photos of damage, documentation of alternative housing needs, reports of illness or health impacts, mold remediation efforts and replacement of furnaces, water heaters or other major appliances.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune\u2019s Rebecca Johnson, Jake Sheridan, William Tong and Paulina Czupryna contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city of Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois are appealing President Donald Trump\u2019s denial last…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":339532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[12459,47737,14674,960,5404,17073,746,5386,1818,31887,1370,24563,50,80,313,17075],"class_list":{"0":"post-339531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-aurora","9":"tag-aurora-beacon-news","10":"tag-burbank","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-cook-county","13":"tag-dupage-county","14":"tag-environment","15":"tag-il","16":"tag-illinois","17":"tag-kane-county","18":"tag-latest-headlines","19":"tag-mchenry-county","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-weather","23":"tag-will-county"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115454616040933667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}