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Winnetka family mourns loss of dogs submerged in flooded basement

By John P. Huston TribLocal reporter July 25, 2011 at 4:34 p.m.
Jim Cravens points to the 8-foot-high mark the flood water left in his Winnetka basement after the July 23 rainstorm. The family’s three pet dogs were in kennels in the basement and drowned. (John P. Huston, Tribune reporter)

Jim Cravens points to the 8-foot-high mark the flood water left in his Winnetka basement after the July 23 rainstorm. The family’s three pet dogs were in kennels in the basement and drowned. (John P. Huston, Tribune reporter)

The weekend storm didn’t wake Jim and Alex Cravens.

But when the Winnetka couple looked down the basement stairs on July 23, their hearts sank. Eight feet of water had submerged everything, including the three kennels containing their pets: Wickham, a Havanese; Emma, a Maltese; and Oscar, an English bulldog.

While the couple and their two sons slept upstairs, the basement filled with water until it nearly reached the top step. The family never heard a bark.

“We all loved them. It’s not losing a child, but it sure feels like it,” Jim Cravens said Monday, as crews worked downstairs.

“They were my babies,” Alex Cravens added, holding a tissue to her nose and trying to keep back the tears.

“If I thought there was even a point-zero-one percent chance that there was something that could happen to them, I would have never put them down there,” she said.

It was hours later that afternoon when the water level receded and a plumber helped Jim put the dogs’ bodies in bags and carry them to the car.

The Cravens and their two sons, 14 and 10, moved from Texas to their home in the 900 block of Cherry Street in mid-June. They bought their 9-year-old brick house for two reasons, Jim said.

“We wanted to be close to the train so I could walk, and we wanted a newer house because we didn’t want to deal with an older house,” he said.

But even new houses have flooding problems in Winnetka. Trustees have been discussing the issue for years, and are still debating $14.1 million in recommended projects from an engineering consultant, some of which were first offered in 2009.

Trustee Christopher Rintz said at a recent council study session he was “surprised that we’re dealing with such a substandard system,” and that he worries about a possible negative effect on the village’s property values “if word gets out that we’re continually flooding.”

The Cravens never imagined their basement would flood — especially not to the extent it did Saturday.

“We were never aware of a problem here,” Alex Cravens said.

And while their neighbor to the east reported five feet of standing water in their basement, the Cravens’ neighbor across the street had a bone-dry basement after the storm.

Basement flooding, which can be sporadic, is reported across the village after major storms, the engineering consultant’s report shows.

This week many Winnetka residents in the heart of town were still cleaning their way out of the destruction left behind during the flash flood. Disaster relief companies’ trucks mingled with air conditioning companies along the tree-lined residential blocks.

Curbs were filled with furniture, boxes and toys that were ruined.

But as workers stripped their formerly finished basement to the studs on July 25, the Cravens kept replaying the events of the weekend in their heads — like a nightmare on repeat.

“I walked out the front door to get the newspaper and our neighbors were out on both sides, and they looked kind of shell-shocked,” Alex Cravens said. “They said, ‘Your basement’s under water.’”

Their finished basement had an open staircase leading down to a family room, a guest bedroom and a storage room. Along with several boxes of items that had yet to be unpacked from their recent move, nearly everything that belonged to their sons was destroyed, except for one plastic tub of toys that happened to float on the top of the floodwater, sparing everything inside.

A cedar closet with her wedding gown, fur coats and other heirlooms was completely engulfed.

The flood water broke through an outside door and shattered a double-pane window as it poured into the basement.

“And the sump pump never stopped,” Jim Cravens said.

The Cravens are heartbroken about not hearing a sound from the dogs.

“Believe me, you’d hear them if they were barking due to the open staircase,” Alex Cravens said. “They were loud barkers.”

Insurance will likely only cover $10,000, Jim Cravens said, but the damage is extensive. The washer, dryer, furnace, hot water heater and everything else need to be replaced.

“If it weren’t for the dogs, I’d just be angry,” he said.

Instead, both feel a strange numbness.

“I am not processing anything. We’re overwhelmed,” Alex Cravens said.

The silver lining to the destruction is that their children were unharmed, Jim Cravens said.

“They’re safe. Everything else is just stuff. You can replace it,” he said.

But he and his wife agreed that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

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