Sewage Flood Relief
Donation protected
On October 11th, 2013 the town that we live in as well as the surrounding areas got an abnormally large amount of rain causing flooding all over the area. Across the street from our house is a sewage pumping station that failed causing thousands of gallons of raw sewage to pump onto our home from both toilets and the bathtub. Anything that went down the toilet / shower drain made it's way out of ours and into our house, soiling our floors, beds, clothing and more. 
Immediately we called the sewer authority, after repeated emergency calls to other local authorities there was a call back from a woman who listened to what we had to say and said "I'll call John." Today marks two weeks and we have still not heard back from anyone. After those calls we called the insurance company. Our homeowners insurance covers up to $5000 in sewer surge-back insurance.. Let me pause to explain why this is necessary. 15 years ago this same thing happened to our house, there was a lot less solid that time but it's still the same concept. The insurance company sent out a bio hazard clean-up team to tear out the carpet and clean up our home to make it liveable. After 3 days the carpet and padding was torn up and everything soiled was hauled away in trash bags forever.
The floors and personal items weren't the only things affected by the sewage flood. Our heat vents are on the floor, there is one next to the toilet in each bathroom. This caused a river of sewage in the heat ducts which caused the main duct pipe that's attached to the furnace to fill and rip from the bottom of the furnace and saturated the basement. This has left us without heat on 30* nights. That's the black pipe in the picture below.
Almost two weeks later we're living without heat on sinking floors. The cleaning crew sent their bill this morning. To cover the clean up and nothing else it will take $4,364.41 of the $5000 from the insurance company. That leaves us with $635.49 to replace or repair:
Subflooring
Carpet Padding
Carpet
Insulation
Doors ruined from swelling
Floors In Two Bathrooms
Clothing
Three Beds
Hundreds of Dollars in Electronics that were being stored in a flooded closet
Remove Old Duct Work
Install New Duct Work
and cover the electricity bill for the clean up crews fans running for 3 days straight.
The estimate from the restoration company of just labor to replace all of the stuff is $3,329.47
That doesn't include materials or the duct work, just the floors.
This is hard for us to do. We're not the type of people to ask for help unless we really need it. Any little bit really helps greatly and is more than appreciated.
Thank you again,
Amanda, Patti and Mike
clean up bill.
bathtub after everything went back down
sub-flooring in hallway
wet heat duct, two weeks later.
Immediately we called the sewer authority, after repeated emergency calls to other local authorities there was a call back from a woman who listened to what we had to say and said "I'll call John." Today marks two weeks and we have still not heard back from anyone. After those calls we called the insurance company. Our homeowners insurance covers up to $5000 in sewer surge-back insurance.. Let me pause to explain why this is necessary. 15 years ago this same thing happened to our house, there was a lot less solid that time but it's still the same concept. The insurance company sent out a bio hazard clean-up team to tear out the carpet and clean up our home to make it liveable. After 3 days the carpet and padding was torn up and everything soiled was hauled away in trash bags forever.
The floors and personal items weren't the only things affected by the sewage flood. Our heat vents are on the floor, there is one next to the toilet in each bathroom. This caused a river of sewage in the heat ducts which caused the main duct pipe that's attached to the furnace to fill and rip from the bottom of the furnace and saturated the basement. This has left us without heat on 30* nights. That's the black pipe in the picture below.
Almost two weeks later we're living without heat on sinking floors. The cleaning crew sent their bill this morning. To cover the clean up and nothing else it will take $4,364.41 of the $5000 from the insurance company. That leaves us with $635.49 to replace or repair:
Subflooring
Carpet Padding
Carpet
Insulation
Doors ruined from swelling
Floors In Two Bathrooms
Clothing
Three Beds
Hundreds of Dollars in Electronics that were being stored in a flooded closet
Remove Old Duct Work
Install New Duct Work
and cover the electricity bill for the clean up crews fans running for 3 days straight.
The estimate from the restoration company of just labor to replace all of the stuff is $3,329.47
That doesn't include materials or the duct work, just the floors.
This is hard for us to do. We're not the type of people to ask for help unless we really need it. Any little bit really helps greatly and is more than appreciated.
Thank you again,
Amanda, Patti and Mike
clean up bill.
bathtub after everything went back down
sub-flooring in hallway
wet heat duct, two weeks later.
Organizer
Amanda Smith
Organizer
Abbottstown, PA
