‘Everything is ruined’: Neighbors in Southeast DC feel helpless after sewage floods their homes
WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — Neighbors in Southeast D.C. are feeling helpless after wastewater flooded their homes for more than 17 hours.
“It’s shocking. It’s like, what do you do?” said Khianti Silver, who lives on Southern Ave. SE. “You don’t have any resolve. You’re calling your home insurance, you’re calling WSSC, you’re calling DC Water and they’re still swapping blame.”
Silver said she first noticed water coming into her basement around 8 p.m. Monday night.
After spending time trying to clean it up, the flooding persisted. She said she called DC Water around 9 p.m. Meanwhile, other neighbors also noticed flooding in their homes.
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“My furniture is now floating, it’s insane,” said homeowner Kayla Smith. “It’s smelly, it’s humid, it’s really disgusting.”
Both Smith and Silver said they made multiple calls throughout the night to the D.C. agency, but no one responded in person until about 10:20 a.m. When a crew came out, they discovered the broken pipe was not their pipe. Rather, it was the responsibility of WSSC Water, which maintains wastewater utilities for Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
“We don’t know what happened right now. We are understanding there is an issue with the homes in the area. Which, we understand can be a little bit confusing because we’re standing in D.C. right now, Maryland is on the other side of the street,” said Lynn Riggins, a spokesperson for WSSC Water.
Riggins said the issue is believed to be with the agency’s 10-inch underground sewage pipe. However the exact cause of the problem—whether it’s a burst, collapsed or clogged pipe—cannot be determined until the road is excavated. It’s also unclear if the weather played a role.
Crews were working to determine and fix the problem Tuesday evening.
Still, neighbors are frustrated.
“From 8 p.m. yesterday until 2 p.m. today, maybe even 3 p.m., we had continued sewage pumping into houses,” said Smith, who said she’s lost both expensive and irreplaceable items in the sewage.
Roughly two feet of sewage sat in her basement as of 5 p.m. Tuesday.
“My sofa, my couch, I also have a bed down there, we have clothes we keep in storage, my washer and dryer. My husband who passed away, his snowboards are down there, his motorcycle jacket,” she explained.
Smith said she and her neighbors feel abandoned by District officials.
“People are throwing their hands up at this point,” she said. “People have suggested, ‘we’re going to help,’ but there’s no real concrete answer on who you can call. There’s no one identifying a point person, to help us contact contractors, heat, electricity.”
Silver—who lost everything from a television to a bed in the flooding—agreed.
“[I feel] a little discouraged, a little abandoned,” she said.
Silver wants to see a greater response from her elected officials and DC Water, even if they aren’t fully responsible.
“Show up, be here. If there’s nothing you can do, at least show us you’re supporting us. This isn’t our fault, we’re residents. We pay taxes here, not in Maryland,” said Silver.
“This is a terrible situation and we are working as quickly as possible to make it right,” said Riggins. “These are not our customers, but we will make it right. We will work with them. We’ve had customer advocates here since the moment we found out about this.”
It’s unclear how long it will take to resolve the issue.
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