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Residents flooded by water-main break worry they'll be hung out to dry
It won't be clear until January whether all claims will be paid or a court will have to decide whose damages are covered.
Residents flooded by water-main break worry they'll be hung out to dry
After an unusually large water-main break flooded the area around 21st and Bainbridge a month ago, the Philadelphia Water Department was on the scene quickly, residents said. But with more than 70 — some estimate more than 100 — houses flooded with six inches to six feet of water and mud, not everyone was able to receive the same immediate assistance.
Now, some are worried that the money they laid out for emergency repairs — or the funds they still need to rebuild finished basements that were made unlivable in the flood — will never be paid out. That's because, while the PWD sent out workers to clean up basements, replace hot water heaters and fix damaged basement walls all at its own expense, other residents who undertook such repairs on their own will have to submit claims to the city's Office of Risk Management. And because of statewide tort limits, the maximum amount of those claims the city can pay out in a single incident total $500,000. So if the total claims submitted exceed $500,000, a court will decide who gets paid back what — and some homeowners may be out of luck.
Confused? So were area residents at a meeting at Shiloh Baptist Church at 20th and Christian streets last night, organized by Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, South of South Neighborhood Association, the city's Risk Management Office and the PWD. There, residents learned that the city won't even declare whether that $500,000 limit will be surpassed until Jan. 22, 2013, the claims deadline they've imposed. "I lost a lot, and I need to know whether I will ever be able to rebuild," said a resident of the 2000 block of Kater Street, who didn't want her name used. She said her daughter's basement bedroom was destroyed in the flood, and she doesn't know how much rebuilding might cost yet since even getting estimates has been a challenge. Another resident, Alissa McLaughlin, who lives at the corner of 21st and Pemberton, said she lost $32,000 worth of electronics and personal possessions, none of it covered by insurance. "They waited so long to clean the basement that there was a lot of mold. We lost everything," she says. The city, like any insurance company, will adjust each claim.
While PWD's Debra McCarty told the group, "We fixed anybody's house that let us in," some residents felt they got the short end of the stick. McLaughlin says she finally got PWD in to clean her basement, on the Thursday after the Sunday-night flood, by taking the day off of work to hunt down the person in charge and get him to put her house on the list. "It was definitely a squeaky-wheel situation." Another man was irate that, when his insurance company had hired people to come in and pump his basement clean, they weren't allowed on the block Monday, to make way for the emergency workers as well as PWD-hired contractors who were cleaning out other residents' basements.
Philly Risk Management Director Barry Scott says there is good news: The most the city has paid in such an event in the last 15 years has been $300,000, so surpassing the tort limit in a water main break is unprecedented. However, it's not out of the question either: he just won't know until after January 22. "The city recognizes we are responsible for this event, and we are looking to make sure people aren't hung out to dry — no pun intended," he said. People with insurance can put in claims for their deductibles, he noted.
Furthermore, the city has been doing leak testing around the neighborhood, PWD spokeswoman Joanne Dahme said, pointing out that Philly's incidence of main breaks is still well below the national average. The PWD still doesn't know what caused the massive break in a 48-inch-wide transmission main, but an independent study has ruled out corrosion or age. Any other forensic evidence was washed away in the flood, so it will probably remain a mystery.
One concern that Dahme and Scott weren't able to address was that of whether subsidence — the undermining of soil beneath the streets and homes, (the cause of longstanding and often unresolved issues in the city) — might be an issue. Scott said the city hasn't yet decided whether to send out a structural engineer, though he said homeowners could choose to do so at their own expense. He pointed out that people should do whatever they feel is necessary to protect their homes, not wait to see what problems might reveal themselves later on. "We frankly will be dealing with some other issue two or three years down the road, and it will be too late for issues arising from this event," he said. On the other hand, he added, on an only moderately encouraging note, "Our initial indication is it hasn't been as terrible as it could be."
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