New O`Hare flight paths wake hundreds of

New O'Hare flight paths wake
hundreds of Chicagoans
beyond free-insulation zone
Land featuring forest preserve, highways or commercial areas that is
compatible with O'Hare Airport's Fly Quiet program is depicted in purple on
this map.
O’Hare International Airport jet traffic kept hundreds of Chicago residents
awake in March, even though they live outside an area predicted to shoulder
the worst noise from new flight paths, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis
indicates.
More than 95 percent of Chicagoans who reported that O’Hare jets disturbed
their sleep live outside a “noise contour” that determines eligibility for free
sound insulation, an analysis of complaints to Chicagonoisecomplaint.com
shows.
In fact, March sleep complaints stretch as far east as Sheridan Road in
Chicago’s 48th Ward, along Lake Michigan.
That’s 13 miles from the center of O’Hare and more than 8 miles beyond the
limits of the noise contour that Federal Aviation Administration experts
predicted would experience onerous jet noise once an $8 billion O’Hare
Modernization Program is completed.
Plotted on a map, the complaints fan out like a shotgun blast. Many line up
with runways. But others are between two east-west runways; those
residents are being hit with noise from more than one flight path, said Darrin
Thomas, who created the citizen website that people can gripe to about jet
noise.
Fred Cnota of Norwood Park is one of them. As many as five days a week, he
says, shortly after 6 a.m., he can see flights headed toward two runways.
“It’s non-stop noise,” he said.
The sleep complaints reflect the dramatic October 2013 shift that switched
flights from traveling mostly over suburbs north and south of O’Hare to
mostly areas east and west of it.
“It’s insane, the amount of traffic,” said Paula Getman, who lives in the city’s
39th Ward, where the biggest cluster of March sleep complaints — 8,789 —
occurred. “It’s slow torture.”
Getman reported her sleep was disturbed 265 times in March. One 24-hour
period included five jets from 11:25 p.m. to 1 a.m., 13 more from 2 a.m. to
3:04 a.m., then a final single salute at 5:52 a.m.
Getman said she has lived in her North Park bungalow since 1997 but now
it’s “a completely different place.”
Sleep-disturbance complaints indicate the Federal Aviation Administration’s
noise contour does not accurately reflect the impact of O’Hare’s new flight
paths, said Jac Charlier, a leader of the Fair Allocation in Runways citizen
coalition, or FAIR.
“The noise contour, like almost everything else that has happened with the
O’Hare Modernization Program, has been wrong. Dead wrong,” Charlier said.
A deadly experience?
Complaints to the city’s jet noise hotline and website skyrocketed after the
O’Hare runway switch. Suddenly, 70 percent of air traffic entered O’Hare
from the east over Chicago and departed to the west.
Jet noise complaints to the city soared even higher last week, when the city
released the first batch of figures reflecting complaints forwarded from the
citizen website.
On Friday, noise complaints to chicagonoisecomplaint.com since Feb. 1
surpassed the 1 million mark. A Sun-Times analysis of just March O’Hare
complaints to that site found that more than 61,000 were listed as disrupting
sleep. They included 377 Chicagoans who registered 28,843 such reports.
About three-quarters of the March sleep complaints span the Fly Quiet hours
of 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., when pilots are urged to fly over less-populated areas.
Of Chicago complainants who listed addresses, 97 percent lived outside
noise contour areas predicted to be hit with jet noise loud enough to qualify
for free sound insulation.
Experts say repeated sleep disruptions can lead to increased chances of
cardiovascular problems, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, obesity and
even death.
In general, “people who sleep five hours a night have an increased risk of
death — substantially,” said Dr. Charles Czeisler, a professor of sleep
medicine at Harvard University.
Heading to the basement
Under the overhaul plan, two more runways, and the extension of a third, are
due by 2020, although funding for much of that work is uncertain. The noise
contour is not due to be revised until 2025, although the FAA is re-evaluating
the decibel level used to draw such contours nationwide.
The city has been insulating additional homes inside the contour before each
runway opens. But with nearly all complaints occurring outside insulationeligible areas, most residents must find their own ways to deal with overnight
jet noise.
Some use deep breathing exercises; others run the dryer.
Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Northwestern
University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, recommends heavy curtains or
noise-canceling machines or earplugs.
In the 40th Ward, Michael Kraetsch plans to sleep on an air mattress in his
basement during the next bad onslaught. That’s usually over the holidays,
when Kraetsch said overnight cargo flights seem relentless. He reported 334
sleep disruptions in March on the citizen website.
When he moved from Wisconsin to Chicago in 2014, Kraetsch said, “I never
in my wildest dreams imagined that we would be having planes in the middle
of the night. I didn’t look at the house at 1 o’clock in the morning [before
buying it].”
Zee urged residents to record decibel levels in their homes.
“You need data,” Zee said.
Kraetsch measured the decibel level in his bedroom during at least three
flights on a recent night between 11:15 p.m. and midnight. He said it was 65
to 75 decibels – well above the 55-decibel level officially considered onerous
at night outside a home.
The Chicago Department of Aviation declined repeated requests for an
interview about O’Hare jet noise and would not respond to emailed
questions.
City officials previously have said the runway switch was needed to increase
capacity and reduce delays caused by diagonal runways that intersect.
Saving the diagonals
The sleep complaints are another reason lawmakers should allow O’Hare to
keep two diagonal runways open instead of decommissioning them before
new runways are added, FAIR’s Charlier said. Legislation to do so has
passed the Illinois Senate and is making its way through the Illinois House.
One diagonal runway in particular, 14R, leads to a long stretch of mostly nonresidential land. Yet 14R was used for only 1 percent of arrivals during Fly
Quiet hours in the fourth quarter of 2014, city data shows.
Charlier contends overnight O’Hare traffic is lopsided in favor of one arrival
and one departure runway and should be spread out on different nights on
different runways, including diagonal ones marked for closure.
“Don’t build lots of runways and then only use one for night arrivals,” Charlier
said. “It’s a waste of taxpayer money.”
Thomas urged the city to publicly report and plot noise complaints on a map
as he does in real time on his website.
“If I can do it with off-the-shelf technology, why can’t they?” Thomas asked.
“I think they aren’t doing it because it’s embarrassing.”