The city of Chicago, Cook County, and the state of Illinois are appealing President Donald Trump’s recent denial of a disaster declaration that would have unlocked federal financial assistance for survivors and public repairs following heavy rains and flooding in July and August.
A joint news release on Tuesday detailed that flooding from storms on July 25-28 and August 16-19 caused “widespread property damage, prolonged power outages, and significant disruptions to transportation and essential services” across Illinois. The heavy rains displaced residents, left thousands without electricity, caused collapsed ceilings from water damage, flooded basements and roadways, overflowed rivers, broke boilers, furnaces, and other large appliances, and even triggered ground stops at Midway and O’Hare International airports.
“I will say, Illinois is not alone. They’ve rejected requests from a number of states this year already,” said Andy Winkler, managing director of housing and infrastructure policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center and manager of its Disaster Response Reform Task Force. “This batch of rejections looks more political, but it is consistent with what they’ve been doing—really only approving the highest-profile disasters.”
In recent years, as climate change has fueled more intense events ranging from flooding to wildfires, the federal government has taken on a larger financial responsibility for natural disaster recovery. However, that approach is now being curtailed under the Trump administration.
“We now are very abruptly shifting the financial burden of disaster recovery directly onto states and local governments,” Winkler explained.
According to an Associated Press report, the administration’s disaster aid decisions have largely fallen along party lines. Last week, President Trump highlighted on social media that he approved aid for Alaska, a state he “won BIG” in the last three elections, writing, “I will never let you down.” He also approved disaster declarations for Nebraska, North Dakota, and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota.
Conversely, requests from Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Vermont were denied. The administration also denied an appeal from Maryland for a disaster declaration related to flooding in May.
When asked about the denial reasons, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson stated that President Trump is “ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement, not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”
In Illinois, preliminary damage assessments covered affected jurisdictions including Chicago and Aurora, as well as Cook, Will, Kane, Boone, McHenry, Jersey, and Calhoun counties. Notably, Trump secured the majority vote in four of these counties during last year’s election, with over 70% support in Jersey and Calhoun counties. This has fueled discussions about how politicization of federal aid not only harms blue states but also some supporters of the current administration.
Winkler emphasized the broader impact on Trump voters, referencing red North Carolina counties affected by flooding from Hurricane Helene last year that are still awaiting federal reimbursements for disaster recovery funds already spent. “I don’t know if people will blame the president personally,” he said. “My bigger concern is that it further erodes the confidence that people have in government and its ability to help.”
Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told Stateline that the federal government “focuses its support on truly catastrophic disasters—massive hurricanes, devastating earthquakes, or wide-scale attacks on the homeland.” Hughes added that state and local governments “often remain an impediment to their own community’s resilience,” urging states to take a more extensive role and have “an appetite to own the problem.”
Local leaders in Illinois and other states are already scrambling to address the growing dangers of extreme weather fueled by climate change. To bolster the appeal of the president’s denial and strengthen the request for aid, the city’s Office for Emergency Management and Communications along with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency are calling on residents and businesses to submit additional evidence of new or previously unreported damages and needs through November 7.
Following the mid-August floods, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson surveyed storm damage in the Gage Park neighborhood and proposed some short-term solutions such as adding sensors in drains, planting thousands of trees, and more aggressively clearing pipes. However, Mayor Johnson acknowledged that the city’s drainage system and infrastructure are insufficient and require substantial repairs. He emphasized that prevention will demand investments, including progressive revenue or “pay what you can” tax systems.
“We’ll bring it to the residents, and people can decide if we want to remain stagnant and continue to get what we have received, or do we want to press forward… so that families who are hurting from these floods don’t have to worry every time it rains,” Johnson told reporters at the time.
The storms began with wind damage across the Chicago region on July 24, followed by a slow-moving line of storms with torrential rainfall the next day that led to several flash flooding incidents in parts of Chicago, according to the National Weather Service. A weather station at Midway recorded 3.25 inches of rain over about three and a half hours.
Cook County officials reported that Chicago, Burbank, Justice, and Summit were among the hardest-hit municipalities through July 28. When the county and Chicago issued disaster proclamations nine days later, over 3,000 resident surveys reporting damage had been submitted.
During the weekend of August 16-17, a long line of severe thunderstorms swept across Chicago and its suburbs, leaving more than 60,000 Commonwealth Edison customers without power. Local rain rates of 2 to 4.5 inches per hour were observed across the western and southern Chicago metropolitan area.
Lee Carlaw, lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Chicago office, told the Tribune that the intense rains likely saturated the soil and made conditions more favorable for flash flooding that persisted through August 19. Rainfall totals during the subsequent two days were “highly variable,” varying from half an inch in downtown Chicago to 3 to 4 inches in southern suburbs. Some locations in Cook and Will counties, including Oak Forest, Lockport, and Oswego, received between 6 and 9 inches of rain over a 72-hour period.
Radar estimates on August 18 showed hourly rain rates occasionally reached 2 to 4 inches, resulting in numerous flash flooding incidents due to the rapid accumulation of water on saturated soil and impermeable urban surfaces.
City Department of Water Management Commissioner Randy Conner described the rain as a “100-year” downpour. A week following the August floods, Mayor Johnson and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle signed disaster proclamations, with Johnson calling it “a necessary step” to assist “our most vulnerable neighborhoods.”
According to local officials, some Chicago areas were still recovering from July’s floods when the August storms struck. Within three days of the August event, more than 4,000 damage surveys had been completed by residents across the city and suburban Cook County.
“It’s clear that these massive events are occurring and people are not prepared; they’re at high risk,” Winkler commented.
State and local officials are urging residents affected by flooding between July 25-28 or August 16-19 to complete a self-assessment survey, which opened at 8 a.m. on Wednesday and will close on November 7. The survey is available on the state’s website at [iema.illinois.gov/recovery](https://iema.illinois.gov/recovery).
Officials also encourage residents and business owners to submit photos of damage, documentation of alternative housing needs, reports of illness or health impacts, mold remediation efforts, and requests for replacement of furnaces, water heaters, or other major appliances.
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*Contributing reporters: The Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune’s Rebecca Johnson, Jake Sheridan, William Tong, and Paulina Czupryna.*
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/28/illinois-disaster-aid-flooding-trump/