Sewer district officials have replaced two of the massive water pumps on the South Side that were crippled by last week's storms, and hope to have a third online within hours.

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago board  will discuss efforts to restore operations at the pump house -- one of the world's largest -- at its meeting tomorrow.

Hundreds of residents saw their basements flood after the pumps were unable to push storm runoff out of the sewers.

"The good news is that we are prepared for a storm even as dramatic as last week's and reasonably confident that there will not be adverse effects to people's property by the district or its systems," says district spokeswoman Jill Horist.

She says the district expects to have the station fully operational within two weeks.

"We only need one pump to handle the normal flow in dry weather conditions," says Horist. "We're in especially good shape since the weather is so fabulous."

The pump house station, located at 3838 S. Racine, lost electrical power during the storms on Aug. 4 when rushing water incapacitated its 14 massive pumps, which normally push up to 3.9 billion gallons of storm and waste water. Flood waters rose 10 feet in the station before district engineers stabilized the situation.

Among those affected by the problem was Frances Craft, a resident of the 3600 block of South Parnell Avenue on the South Side. Craft said she was making a bottle for her baby shortly before midnight on Aug. 4 when water started pouring into her basement apartment.

"Water was pouring in underneath the door that goes to the backyard," said Craft. "I opened the back door and the whole backyard and street was flooded."

At one point, Craft's apartment was filled with two feet of dirty water, which didn't recede until around 5 a.m.

The clean-up took over two days and the family had to throw out a lot of things, including kids clothes and toys and old family photos that got soaked.

"They said it could happen again. That's what we're worried about," said Craft.

Last week, the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communication issued tips on how to prepare for flooding last week in response to South Side residents who feared further storms could bring significant flooding.

So far, however, the district's remediation measures appear to have forestalled further flooding. These measure include diverting water from the pump station to the district's holding tunnels and resevoirs, which can hold up to 1.9 billion gallons of water.

The board will also vote tomorrow on emergency contracts to fix the station. Among those contracts will be one in the amount of $700,000 to Midwest Service Center, L.L.C., an electrical repair company based in Hobart, Ind. The company is taking apart, drying out and reassembling the motors in the flooded pumps.

The pump house station serves approximately 26 square miles of the city, from Roosevelt Road south to 87th Street, and from the lakefront west to Racine Avenue.

The station transports wastewater and storm water to the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant.