Flooding has always been a threat during Chicago's warmer months, but that threat is more and more present in the spring since March.

Multiple rounds of severe storms have caused not only flooding but hail damage and even tornadoes.

Joining us to discuss flooding its impact and how we can manage them are Kevin Fitzpatrick, assistant director of engineering at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and via zoom, Ashish arm of the climate and urban sustainability lead at the University of Illinois's Discovery Partners Institute.

Thank you both for being here to to talk about this with us.

She if I could start with you, please.

You know, how is climate change affecting the threat of severe weather here in Chicago?

>> Yeah, thank you for having me.

I think it's a good question.

If you look at damage and impact he's seeing or the ministers, a backpack, above normal precipitation checked into a storm track 100 buildings.

So basically the most is a lot more warmer than normal speeding up lot questions.

And then motion is turning into a bit rainfall because of higher instability and getting to a of thunderstorms and tornadoes as And if you think of a business has become a classic recipe for us to get out there and you're like, I would just help needed more often.

>> Yeah, certainly quite frequent this spring.

You know, Kevin Fitzpatrick, the NW Rd plays a key role here for folks who aren't familiar.

What infrastructure doesn't manage to help contain floodwater.

Most people don't realize we are an independent government agency.

We serve the city of Chicago and 128 suburbs and we have a stormwater management authority that we gained in 2004 as a as a regional stormwater district for all of Kerr County.

>> And some of the infrastructure we have the tenure as our planner deep tunnel as most people know it.

And we also have.

Over 35 a storm water reservoirs that help prevent over bank flooding from a exacerbating it from I guess I leaving the banks of rivers working its way into homes and streets and then we do stormwater management partnership projects with several different partners around the county to put in things like green infrastructure conveyance projects, stormwater conveyance storage, underground storage projects.

So we have several We have a very diverse array of projects.

>> And, you know, when heavy rains are in the forecast, what sorts of things WR do you do to prepare for that?

>> Well, one of the things we about over 100 years ago now we reversal for the Chicago in Calumet River's.

I think most people know about that project in Chicago is kind of famous for that.

But as part of that project recreated 76 miles of manmade waterways, which we have the ability to somewhat control the level of so in advance of a storm we can reduce.

We can let more water out of those canals downstream and create about 5 billion gallons worth a storage in the canals.

So that when it does rain, a lot of that water can be absorbed within the canal itself.

And of course, is that level does continue to rise during a storm.

We have the ability to release some of it to Lake Michigan.

If the lake level is low enough.

>> She Sharma, you know, we sometimes call floods 50 year floods or 100 year floods.

I mean, look what exactly, you know, do those phrases mean, you know, is that meaning changing as the climate does?

>> Yeah, I think those that are going off of flood pitch happens for a specific paint them generally that are turning to really send it over to having to do it.

it has India.

But happening these days?

It is committee of storm on the floor.

In fact, the kissing is not 100 flood.

It has become 10 to 20 and even take isn't helping.

The local happened multiple times over the years.

>> most especially in the Midwest right now.

>> And you've worked on a project to help forecast weather sort the individual neighborhood level.

How do you hope folks can use that tool?

>> Yeah, definitely.

So we all fish another forecasting for the whole state of At one it is a mission and the forecast weather for the next 48.

I from same time the forecast and throw it being fought in doesn't because it doesn't all of its case.

So the different theft over forecasting.

If the if you see that a substantial don't offend people happening, then the and forecasting model and those that up Bismarck get tradition of then a condition marked of the big 17, is to go into effect The time 2 point, if I was in the collaborative depended largely on this and be published a minuscule piece in pay and give it a proud of the work to provide much more nuanced and had a solution forecasting for the region.

you can go up to a few feet of the solution, employed debt, as Fed spent.

>> That's interesting work.

You know, Kevin Fitzpatrick, some of the sewer systems that feed into NW R D Project, they can be quite old.

What sorts of challenges does that present?

Yeah, it is a huge challenge so that, you know, I mentioned earlier that or a plan project, spent a lot of my career on.

>> And it's it's really this amazing engineering project.

It's got 110 miles tunnels underneath.

Basically every waterway in the Chicagoland area.

For most of them.

And it captures flow from local sewers.

So combined sewers that have both domestic wastewater and rain, water previously would discharge to the waterway and put the waterway and then the waterways are back up flood people's homes.

Now it can drive down into the deep tunnel.

It over 400 locations.

And when I say deep tunnel 300 you know, about the longest once stretches from on comes under the North Shore channel through downtown and out of the southwest suburb and discharges into reservoir which we saw earlier on the show.

It's an enormous Corey that has been repurposed into this storm.

Water reservoir.

So during a storm we can capture up to 11 billion gallons of water in the type system.

And then we hold it until after the storm and then pump it back to one of our treatment plants in clean, et before returning it to the environment.

But the problem we're seeing today with climate change and some of these more intense storms is that the water can even make its way through the local sewers to the deep tunnel system so it can back up within the neighborhood.

So now we're trying to focus how do keep water, where it falls through things like green infrastructure or little local storage projects.

>> Yeah, she Sharma.

You know what?

What is some of that look like to have a climate, resilient infrastructure in place?

>> Yeah, I can put are going to be a great point that the first step for us as it rains hoping to contain and slow down.

The water are absorbed the water it rains and then think about it moves and then feel cable can be managed that stage.

So first as mitigation is because as we think about so infrastructure permeable pavement, screamed rules, anything that can be a nice slow down the water flow absolve.

But again, it infiltrated.

And then can think of how the water can move to a bike foot system that they have could use facility and so on.

And and then all safety and are able to contain it, then it becomes the months outflows, including to the dugout and streams.

So I think solutions of infrastructure, maybe you should have to think getting standards in 2 different houses and more public awareness of using less water going and the storms less laundry, washing utensils and so on and be conservative.

But even using water.

>> Yeah, some of it is, you know, the infrastructure.

Some of it is the mindset certainly, you know, given with that some of the the waterways, the tunnels, the reservoirs, all connected.

How do you try to make sure that, you know, failure at one point doesn't cause problems, you know, across the whole system.

Yeah.

Well, we believe in a lot of redundancy in our system so that tunnel, for example, where it's pumped out.

>> We make sure we have totally separate pump stations at it.

A couple different locations so that if one, if something catastrophic happens at pump station, were still able pump it out with with another pump station.

And other than that, we had been are connected systems where we can help relieve one area if if another area has a problem.

So it's not all for lying.

On one point.

>> We've got just about 30 seconds left.

We mentioned some of the challenges of age, but, you know, just working in an urban environment like Chicago, what sorts of challenges does that present?

Very difficult this highly, you know, in dense area.

There's not a lot of room to put in a new reservoir.

So we're after do get creative.

One of one great example as we work with we partnered with the city of Chicago.

>> Department of Water Management and Public Schools to transform 34 asphalt parking lots that are kind of disrepair.

34 different schools and turned them into beautiful play yards for the kids that they could do.

Outdoor learning in classrooms and stuff like that.

But the beauty is they now are permeable and we can soak water and to them and stored underneath them and we can capture up to 6 and a half million gallons every time it rains.

We've got to get creative and think of projects like that.

Yeah, very interesting approach.

There.

All right.

That's all the time