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CARROLLTON, IL – Three dozen men in red shirts stack and load sandbags from one of several piles, placing them onto bucket trucks under cloudless skies on June 6, 2019. Each bag is carefully loaded here, North of Carrollton, IL., so it can be transported down the levee, a critical piece of infrastructure in the Hartwell Levee and Drainage District, and emplaced by another team.
Some fifty feet distant, just across the high, murky water filling the normally shallow levee, teams of Illinois National Guardsmen do the same work. The difference? These men are inmates. Their red shirts are stenciled with the Illinois Department of Corrections, and each man wears a blue tag with his identification number.
This crew of volunteers, all of whom have been vetted by a complex IDOC application process, is paying their debt to society in the stifling humidity and backbreaking labor of flood-fighting. Despite the relentless challenge, the men are all smiles and good humor as they toil away.
“I’m blown away, these guys don’t complain, and they don’t bicker. They jump right in and don’t quit,” said Wes Ballard, a foreman and Whitehall resident who is working with the team by supervising loading and operating the construction equipment. “I can’t say enough good about them.”
Members of the Illinois State Police and IDOC keep a watchful eye on the job site, but the air is relaxed. A handful of officers watch the men work, but local volunteers bearing gifts of cold water, ice, bandanas and more are regular visitors to the area.
“They’re good guys, and they want to be here to help.” Said an officer involved in watching over the group.
IDOC facilities up and down river have produced tens of thousands of sandbags, which have been distributed throughout the state to places in need by the Illinois Department of Transportation. IDOC to date has filled over 700,000 sandbags to be distributed all across the state. These men, like similar teams along the rivers, are just another piece in the multi-agency operation known as Ready Response 19.
Members of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Illinois National Guard, the ISP, IDOC, IDOT, and countless local civilian volunteers and organizations such as the Red Cross are working together to battle the flooding waterways and to protect the lives and safety of the affected residents. The flooding, which has reached near record levels surpassed only by the infamous flooding of 1993, plagues hundreds of miles of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.
| Date Taken: | 06.06.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 08.08.2019 18:48 |
| Story ID: | 326199 |
| Location: | CARROLLTON, IL, US |
| Web Views: | 28 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, IL. Dept. Of Corrections, Local Residents Join Forces With State To Fight Flooding, by SSG LeAnne Withrow, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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