GRAFTON, Illinois — Grafton Mayor Rick Eberlin held a meeting at Grafton City Hall on Monday night, specifically for local business owners impacted by the major flooding that has plagued the city for weeks.
"I told homeowners it's businesses first," Eberlin said. "Businesses in the community have tried, as best they could, to flood-proof their businesses, where some homeowners have not done that. So their damage is going to be a little bit more."
Eberlin, who owns an ice cream shop downtown, said businesses have taken an 80 to 100 percent revenue loss since the flooding started. He said that even businesses that have been able to remain open during the flood -- like his -- still took a hit because people just couldn't get to them.
"We've had no income since the second week of April," said hotel owner Karen Khamee. "There's been nobody here."
While it's been devastating, Eberlin said he believes the business community will recover.
This weekend, dozens of volunteers will come to Grafton to help where they're needed. Eberlin said the high water that remains could potentially create some accessibility issues, but they intend to get work done anyway.
"We can get our town open for the most part when it gets to about 29 [feet]. That gets River Road opened back up, so that's big. Under 28, it opens up the intersection of Route 3 and 100. You get to about 26.5 and you can utilize just about all the downtown flood roads. Then 24.5 gets rid of all the water, altogether."
Mayor Eberlin said the river is currently at 31.2 feet.
"That's still about 13 feet above flood stage," he said.
In the past, it's taken about two weeks to help get businesses cleaned up. The mayor said he hopes recovery will take a few days this time.
"The river's never going to beat up," Mayor Eberlin said. "It's always going to be there. It might be troublesome, but it's never going to beat us."
The City hopes to be in a state to welcome tourists in time for the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
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