After a September rain storm left many Westchester homes water-logged, the village is asking residents to do their part to prevent homes from flooding in future downpours.

Water and Sewer superintendent John Fecarotta said his department received an unprecedented amount of complaints about seepage and flooding after the three-day storm that pounded the area last month. Most of the flooding, Fecarotta said, could have been prevented if the homes had better plumbing systems. His department has compiled a list of tips that will be published in the village’s quarterly newsletter, due out this month.

“People think there’s a magical lever I can pull to drain the water,” he said. “People have to start helping themselves now.”

The problems started when rain began falling Friday, Sept. 12. The rain continued, unrelenting, through Sunday night. By the end, the storm had dumped 11 inches of rain on the area, forcing residents in neighboring communities out of their homes, and sending thousands of gallons of water into Westchester basements.

One of those homes belongs to Vic and Janis Favia, who awoke Saturday morning to find a pool of water forming near the stand pipe in their basement.

The Favias had lived in their home for 31 years and had never had seen anything but minor water damage.

For the next 48 hours, Vic Favia was in his basement with his wet vacuum, trying to keep up with the water coming up through the floor. In the basement room next door, his wife and daughter spent hours mopping up water seeping in through the tile and edges of the floor.

“Wherever (the water) could find (a space), it was coming up,” Janis Favia said. “We were wiping it up, and it would just bubble back up.”

The Village Board recently approved a 10-year capital improvement plan that includes sewer upgrades. The village has begun setting money aside for the fund.

“It won’t happen overnight, but we are taking steps to improve it,” Trustee Rick Fox said.

In the meantime, Fecarotta said residents have several options to improve plumbing in their own homes and protect themselves from further damage. Fecarotta’s tips range from simply keeping nearby drains free of debris to investing thousands of dollars into flood-prevention systems such as check valves, lift stations and overhead sewers.

“The best thing (residents) can do is call up their local plumber and ask them how to prevent water from coming into their basements,” Fecarotta said.

While residents like the Favias were busy trying to staunch the flow of water into their homes, Fecarotta’s crew worked around the clock, responding to residents’ calls and trying to prevent the village’s system from backing up. His crew began pumping water out of the village’s retention pond, capable of holding more than 30 million gallons of water, immediately after the storm started and did not stop for more than 30 hours.

“We were pumping it out as fast as it was coming in,” Fecarotta said.

To add to the problem, the city’s sewer system is at the mercy of neighboring systems because the city’s water drains into lines in Hillside, Broadview and La Grange Park.

“If they’re having a problem, it backs up,” Fecarotta said. “It’s a domino effect; we just don’t have our own separate line.”

Those systems did back up and the water falling in Westchester had no where to go, as it did during the last big storm.

With his  family either vacuuming, hauling or sopping up gallons of water, Vic Favia rushed to local home improvement stores to buy another wet vacuum, only to find every store had been sold out for two days.

All through Saturday night, Favia woke every half hour to check the water level and continue vacuuming.

“If it wasn’t for that, everything would’ve been ruined,” Vic Favia said.

Favia heeded Fecarotta’s advice and called a local plumber, who sent a wire camera through the 90-foot pipe from Favia’s home to the street. Less than 20 feet from the home, the wire hit a snag. The culprit for the flooding, apparently, was a drain tile almost completely clogged by roots.

With the drain tile now open and draining properly, Favia said he’s going to wait until the next heavy rainfall to see how his plumbing system holds up before investing in a sump pump or other renovations.

“Homeowners have to take responsibility, too,” Favia said. “You can’t expect the village to do everything.”