Village's Blizzard Cleanup Cost: $42,000

It was a rough couple of days.

Thecaused residents untold hours off work and plenty of sore backs. It cost the village of Oswego about $42,000, according to Director Jerry Weaver.

Whether the village will get any of that back in the form of federal disaster relief funds rests on the desk of President Barack Obama. All the municipalities throughout Kendall County spent a collective $197,000 on their snow-removal efforts.

"I really don't know what will happen," said Joe Gillespie, Kendall County's Emergency Management Agency director. "It kind of depends on the president declaring the state a disaster area."

Gillespie said the state sent a letter to Washington D.C., Tuesday asking for the designation. He estimated municipalities from across Illinois may have spent as much as $67 million. The only hope for reimbursement may come from the federal government.

"The state certainly doesn't have any money to give us," Gillespie said.

Gillespie said he is in the process of collecting all the data from the municipalities and townships from across Kendall County and hopes to have the collected figure by the end of this week. From there, he'll send the information to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency which will then submit the state's request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

As for Oswego, Weaver said the village spent about $17,600 on 469 hours of overtime, another $17,000 on salt and $7,000 on fuel. Two vehicles were also damaged during the storm, and the village also could recoup those repair costs, Weaver added.

The village is also about $11,000 over budget on road salt for the year. About 350 tons remain in reserve—a figure Weaver hopes will keep the village supplied for the rest of the cold-weather season.

"Knock on wood," he said. "But I've been here 25 years and I've cleared off many a snow in April.'