North-side Santa Fe sinkhole repaired but residents left with home damage questions

Jan. 20—Drew Johnson awoke around 12:30 a.m. Jan. 12 to what he thought was the sound of wind rushing around his home off Juniper Drive. When he stepped outside, he realized it was not wind but water from a broken city waterline.

The flooding would result in severe damage to Johnson's home, as well as a massive sinkhole in the unpaved road.

Nearly a week later, water service has been restored to the neighborhood and Juniper Drive has been repaired. But Johnson and his family still have questions about how the city of Santa Fe will address the need for what he estimates is $30,000 worth of repairs. So far, he said, no one has come to his property to inspect the damage.

In the five hours after Johnson's initial call to emergency dispatchers about the flooding, water continued rushing from the water main at an alarming rate, flowing down the street into an arroyo behind his property, where he lives with his mother and stepfather.

Quickly, the arroyo overflowed.

By the time the pipe stopped flowing, Johnson's home was flooded, his driveway had eroded and 8 inches of frozen mud was caked in front of his garage and door.

"It flooded the kitchen and living room. It flooded the back bedroom," Johnson said. "It flooded the bathroom that I'd just finished remodeling."

City firefighters arrived around 2 a.m. to place cinder blocks in front of Johnson's home in an attempt to divert the water, but the flow was relentless, he said.

Shannon Jones, director of the city's Public Utilities Department, estimated nearly 700,000 gallons of water were lost in the water main break that morning, which washed out a large section of Juniper Drive and damaged two other pipes.

City employees worked around the clock for several days to restore water to all residents by Monday morning, Jones said. They completed the road's reconstruction Wednesday afternoon.

One worker said he brought water around to households in the neighborhood during the project and asked if there were any other ways he could help.

Johnson said emergency reconstruction and restoration teams were sent to help — floor boards and cabinets in his kitchen needed to be stripped, and several inches of mud had to be removed from his driveway, garden and garage.

There is still a significant amount of work to be done, Johnson added.

The outsides of other homes in the area also were marked with lines from the floodwaters.

Jones said residents whose properties sustained damage were instructed to contact the city's Risk Management Division to file a claim.

According to an online incident claim form, an adjuster will contact a claimant within 72 hours.

Johnson said he has filed a claim but no one has come to examine his property. He can't reach anyone from the division by phone, he added.

"We have heard from them initially early on, and adjusters were supposed to come out on Monday, but they never showed," he said. "They're supposed to come out Tuesday; they never showed. And again Wednesday. At this point now, I've contacted an attorney."

Risk management analyst Melanie Lovato said the wait time was not unreasonable.

"For this incident, phone calls began at 4 a.m., and I answered and assisted," she said. "These situations are always frustrating, and understandably so. However, the process takes a few days to a week to be assigned an adjuster. After that, our adjusters work promptly as possible to resolve."

Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber addressed the sinkhole and property damage in a statement.

"Sometimes things break and there's damage — as we saw last week when a water main broke on Juniper Drive," he said in the statement issued Wednesday. "The residents of that neighborhood took a real hit and suffered a disruption in their lives and damage to their property — and that's something we all empathize with.

"At the same time," he added, "here's a great big 'Thank you!' to the hard-working and dedicated crews who worked 24-7 to restore service as quickly and as safely as possible. We're so grateful to them and proud of their outstanding work."

The break was caused by a leak in a 12-inch pipe, which in turn caused a "thrust block," a type of restraint, to move and create a larger leak, Jones said. The pipe was installed in 1977, he added.

The city's method of checking aging pipes for damage boils down to a calculated point system that evaluates several criteria, Jones said: "The material that the pipe was constructed with, the date that it was installed, the amount of customers it serves, if there's fire protection needs in the area. Those are all kind of things that get weighed into what's the next pipe that gets replaced."

This size of a break is highly unusual, Jones said, and something he sees maybe once in a five-year period.

He estimated the cost from the flooding at $200,000 to $300,000.

While residents said they haven't seen this level of damage from broken water pipes, they have had trouble with flooding and drainage on Juniper Drive.

Johnson said the neighborhood experienced flooding during a heavy rainstorm in July.

"Two to three months ago, a sewage line overflowed," said Patricio Guerrerortiz, who lives a few homes down from Johnson and previously worked as director of Santa Fe County's utility agency. "The city approved this subdivision 10 years ago. But now they have to live with consequences of what they approved."