If there was something a community could do before a flood to minimize flood damage, Mike Sutfin probably knew. Sutfin died last week at age 74. He was Ottawa’s floodplain manager for 12 years and helped change the city from one with homes that flooded every year or so to one that needs only to put up barricades on flooded streets.
Sutfin worked to make it so buildings don’t go up in floodplains. He also tried to get every developer who used soil in a floodplain to free up more soil than that somewhere else so the water would have somewhere to go besides other people’s buildings. And Sutfin hoped to get the National Weather Service to change the way it explains how serious a flood may be so it’s more understandable.
Three dozen or more floodplain managers, building inspectors, elected officials, and others from numerous communities along the Illinois River and other waterways in northern Illinois used to meet quarterly for a floodplain management meeting. Those meetings were coordinated by St. Sen. Sue Rezin at Ottawa City Hall. Sutfin had a big role in those meetings. His work put Ottawa in the top ten flood-prepared cities in the U.S. as ranked in the Community Rating System. He earned several awards.
You can read more about him in his obituary.