My name is Andrew Tipaldos, I am 65 years old, married, with 3 grown children, 4 grandchildren, and 4 dogs. In December, 2025 my wife and I relocated to South Bend from North Carolina and immediately started our search for our new home in this new place.

After 2 months of searching, my wife and I happily settled into what was supposed to be our dream home in the Jewel Woods neighborhood just south of the bypass in South Bend. Shortly after moving in, we invested our life savings into updates to the home, including new trim, paint, flooring, and even replaced all of the old windows with beautiful, new Anderson windows. During the recent 4th of July weekend, my wife and I returned home from a BBQ to find our street completely flooded and water rushing directly through our house, and our neighbor's houses, damaging everything in its path. In addition to sadness and despair we felt seeing our home be destroyed, this was additionally shocking because when we purchased the home we were never made aware it was located in a high-risk flood plain.

As it turns out, this devastation was not caused by a natural disaster or location in a flood plain; it is the result of a diverted rainwater runoff pathway that was created when the US-31 bypass was expanded by St. Joseph County. We have been told that as a result, our neighborhood has become a funnel for excess water during heavy rains, only because an alternate plan was never studied and formalized at the time of the bypass expansion. And this is not the first time this has happened.

We experienced this the first time in March of 2026 shortly after moving in, and back in 2016, the damage was even worse.

The impact to us and the other residents is costly. We've spent $5,000 on emergency restoration each time we go through this ($10,000 total in 2026), not to mention amounts needed for flooring, baseboards, and mold prevention. Just at our house, total repairs may cost upwards of $20,000 for this July 4th event.

While our situation is heartbreaking to my wife and I, we are even more concerned for our elderly and vulnerable neighbors here in Jewel Woods as many of them do not have the resources to cover these sudden expenses or the voice to demand action from local government.

As such, we are hoping to raise a minimum of $10,000 to help homeowners in the neighborhood cover the cost of emergency remediation. Any amounts raised in excess of that amount will be used to finance the studies and civil works required to actually change the water runoff pathway and correctly complete this portion of the 31-bypass expansion project. Thank you to the generous and caring engineers and technical professionals who have already begun to assess what that work would entail, and cost.

How the Funds Will Be Used:

Immediate Relief

Community Action

Please donate and share this campaign. It is time we get our neighbors the help they deserve, and in the process hope that the county get involved, and fix this broken drainage system caused by the 31-bypass expansion.