DETROIT (WWJ) City contractors are slated to start helping homeowners with cleanup and repairs, resulting from a massive water line break on the city’s southwest side, as soon as tomorrow (Monday).
Gary Brown, CEO of Detroit Water & Sewerage Department, said 185 households have been staying in hotels for the past six nights since a 54-inch transmission line ruptured near Livernois—between I-75 and West Vernor—flooding the neighborhood. Residents at Beard and Rowan Streets woke up last Monday morning (February 17) to a frozen tundra surrounding their homes, many left without heat or power.
Inspections have been completed on 144 of those homes, he said.
“The priority is to get the homeowners who are staying in hotels back into their homes as quickly as possible,” Brown told WWJ’s Tony Ortiz.
Brown said an “army of contractors” will be contacting homeowners Monday (February 24) to schedule assessments and repairs. He added homeowners will be present while the assessments take place so they know what to expect.
Any repairs not covered by insurance and deemed necessary as a result of the flooding will be paid for 50/50 by Great Lakes Water Authority (GWLA) and the city, according to Brown.
That includes--but is not limited to--electrical work, and repairing and replacing hot water heaters.
“I expect, because of the frigid temperatures, we will have lots of busted pipes...” Brown said. "So we will have plumbers on hand."
City contractors will also clean up the basements.
“We will get all the debris out, dewater the basement, clean, then make sure we sanitize it,” he said.
According to Brown, 400 homes were in the path of the flooding.
“Given that we only have 144 (homes) that we’ve been able to get into and inspect, I would make the assumption that a lot of the homeowners are self reliant. They’ve got relatives and neighbors and they’re already working on cleaning out their basements. And all they probably want to do is file a claim.”
He said he doesn’t expect to hear from all 400 households.
“But we do expect all 400 to make a claim,” he said.
Repairs of the line are well underway but “there’s still work to,” he told WWJ.
"The good news is you've got that 54-inch replacement piece of pipe in the ground and clamped in," he said, adding the repair work will probably take another week.
The rupture of the GWLA transmission line, built in the 1930s, occurred around 2 a.m. on a frigid night. The city mobilized a massive response effort— with the help of law enforcement from across the region— to rescue dozens of residents from their homes on boats, trucks, and front loaders.
The city provided the displaced residents with hotel accommodations, food, and transportation services for those who lost their cars in the flood.
Brown said they are doing all they can to prevent a similar event from happening again; including investing nearly one billion dollars into rebuilding the infrastructure of the water and sewer system, and doing more frequent maintenance.
But, sometimes Mother Nature is too powerful, with cold temperatures causing the ground to shift.
“It doesn’t matter how old or how new the pipe is. If the ground shifts, that pipe is not going to bend and give, so it’s going to bust,” he said. “So you can’t prevent every water main break. But certainly, we try to do an amount of assessment and repair prior to a break in order to not have these emergency situations.”