Lake Michigan is once again calm after its busy weekend battering Chicago’s shoreline, but while many were stuck indoors, Rogers Park resident Francine McTeer watched outside, waiting to for the storm to pass and remembering what the area outside her home used to look like.
“The beach used to go out about a block and now this has happened,” McTeer said. “And it’s happening every day it seems, like every week it’s caving more.”
McTeer has called the stretch of lake near Howard Beach her home for more than 30 years, but remnants of the winter storm create a new, albeit temporary history for the area.
She says the city has placed rocks where beach goers would once walk, and ice now coats the fencing surrounding the shoreline — even encasing a nearby car left behind over the weekend.
Still, despite the eroding shoreline in Rogers Park, McTeer tries to have a good sense of humor about it all.
“Does anybody want to buy a house?”
The National Weather Service said Lake Michigan’s water level has been near record highs for over six months. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, water levels could exceed those record highs in the first half of 2020, as warmer-than-average temperatures cause accelerated snow melt in various locations near the lake.
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Those high water levels helped fuel massive swells on the lake over the weekend, with portions of the jogging trail along the lakefront being damaged by the high surf.
