Narrative:

West flow C90 with the wind picking up rapidly from the north after a hurricane. There are several safety issues here that have been going on in this facility for a long time. I yelled out more than a few times we were going to have to change configurations and quick because with a 25 knot gusting to 36 knots crosswind this was only a matter of time before refusals will come fast and furious. The wind was 350 to 360; I mean a direct crosswind. Issue number one is instead of changing right then and there; knowing full well what is coming; we (flm) continue to push the envelope and I'm told by him to let him know as soon as we start getting refusals. There is a real problem with that because by that time it's simply too late. You have airplanes all over the sky; trying to move them here; there; and everywhere. Pointing them out to departure and south satellite; which gratefully my hand off was doing for me. I told them as soon as one pilot refuses; they all will and it's going to be a huge cluster but this falls on deaf ears; why I have no idea. This is not a shot at this flm; they all do it generally speaking; we don't take proactive action here or any kind of action in these circumstances until our hands are absolutely forced. A large part of this stems from the fact that the tower calls the configuration change and more often than not; they won't do it until they absolutely have to. But there is a real safety issue with this because we have the airplanes in the air with a limited amount of congested airspace. Nobody is getting hurt sitting on the ground. We have to work out these absolutely ridiculous scenarios; where it gets to the point that you are just trying to separate airplanes; with everyone out of place now; at different speeds; alt; etc. Going to runway 32R in this instance which I have to pull out the information; dump zones act. Because I haven't worked this runway in probably over a year; we rarely use it. On top of that; trying to ensure everyone has the new ATIS and running out of my airspace into mdw's airspace. I mean it's hardly manageable; let alone safe. I talked with the OM about all this and my main question is: why do we do this? Why can't we tell the ord tower this is what we are going to do; because we have to not because we just want to. Instead we wait for them to make the call; creating unsafe situations. On runway 32R a small airliner and someone else in front; (it was a large) he was cleared for the ILS (the small airliner); it was closing way too fast I got visual but not in time; went to like 2.5 or something; I just pulled him off. It was the least of my problems at the moment. I'm trying and have tried for years to figure out why we have this procedure/agreement with our tower that is so iron clad. This TRACON needs control to change the runway configuration when we need to not when the tower wants to. Also; every bit as important; the way to fix these problems is to be proactive not reactive. When we see these scenarios developing for a while; the answer should be we will fix it when the pilots refuse the runway when we know full well that they will.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: C90 Controller described a very complex traffic period with an extreme crosswind factor and the potential for multiple go-arounds. The reporter was very frustrated with this on-going problem.

Narrative: West flow C90 with the wind picking up rapidly from the North after a hurricane. There are several safety issues here that have been going on in this facility for a long time. I yelled out more than a few times we were going to have to change configurations and quick because with a 25 knot gusting to 36 knots crosswind this was only a matter of time before refusals will come fast and furious. The wind was 350 to 360; I mean a direct crosswind. Issue number one is instead of changing right then and there; knowing full well what is coming; we (FLM) continue to push the envelope and I'm told by him to let him know as soon as we start getting refusals. There is a real problem with that because by that time it's simply too late. You have airplanes all over the sky; trying to move them here; there; and everywhere. Pointing them out to Departure and South Satellite; which gratefully my hand off was doing for me. I told them as soon as one pilot refuses; they all will and it's going to be a huge cluster but this falls on deaf ears; why I have no idea. This is not a shot at this FLM; they all do it generally speaking; we don't take proactive action here or any kind of action in these circumstances until our hands are absolutely forced. A large part of this stems from the fact that the tower calls the configuration change and more often than not; they won't do it until they absolutely have to. But there is a real safety issue with this because we have the airplanes in the air with a limited amount of congested airspace. Nobody is getting hurt sitting on the ground. We have to work out these absolutely ridiculous scenarios; where it gets to the point that you are just trying to separate airplanes; with everyone out of place now; at different speeds; alt; etc. Going to Runway 32R in this instance which I have to pull out the information; dump zones act. because I haven't worked this runway in probably over a year; we rarely use it. On top of that; trying to ensure everyone has the new ATIS and running out of my airspace into MDW's airspace. I mean it's hardly manageable; let alone safe. I talked with the OM about all this and my main question is: why do we do this? Why can't we tell the ORD TWR this is what we are going to do; because we have to not because we just want to. Instead we wait for them to make the call; creating unsafe situations. On Runway 32R a small airliner and someone else in front; (it was a large) he was cleared for the ILS (the small airliner); it was closing way too fast I got visual but not in time; went to like 2.5 or something; I just pulled him off. It was the least of my problems at the moment. I'm trying and have tried for years to figure out why we have this procedure/agreement with our Tower that is so iron clad. This TRACON needs control to change the runway configuration when we need to not when the Tower wants to. Also; every bit as important; the way to fix these problems is to be proactive not reactive. When we see these scenarios developing for a while; the answer should be we will fix it when the pilots refuse the runway when we know full well that they will.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.