Ogdensburg couple forced from home by collapsing basement wall
It was a week before Christmas and the house was quiet.
The parents were asleep in their bed, their 21-month-old son in his crib. When suddenly a loud noise awakened Courtney Sewatsky from her sleep. She, in turn, woke husband Joe who crept downstairs.
"He yelled: 'Holy [expletive].' That got me up," she explained Wednesday morning. "What I saw was the back wall (of the basement) just hanging."
The solid concrete wall of the basement had been pushed in and was no longer supporting the back wall of their Ogdensburg home. Their home was now uninhabitable.
The future vision now is of months and possibly years fighting with an insurance company that says it won't cover the damages to the house, even though they have what they thought was comprehensive home insurance.
That future also includes an estimated cost of $100,000 or more to restore the basement wall. The Sewatskys have already paid to have the rear wall of their home shored up with additional braces holding up the floor.
"The (insurance) adjuster says the policy doesn't cover this kind of damage," she said.
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Police Chief Stephen Gordon said nobody was injured, but the rear wall of the home has continued to settle because the foundation was moved in a curve inward, with the middle of the poured concrete wall being about "a foot, foot-and-a-half" in.
Family friend Alyssa Norcia has started a GoFundMe page with the goal of raising money to sustain the family which, as the page notes, faces "tremendous financial and emotional hardship as they navigate their way through this crisis."
Borough Police Chief Robert Gordon said nobody was injured in the incident, which occurred about 4 a.m. on Dec. 18, and brought responses from the police, borough fire department and other emergency services.
The immediate danger is under control, but what caused the foundation to move is open to several theories, ranging from work done by a previous owner to a problem seen in other nearby areas of ground settling from old mine tunnels to other, natural, causes.
The borough, as well as neighboring Franklin, are home to old mines with shafts and tunnels collapsing from age, causing the earth to settle. Yet another theory is that the area on which the house, as well as the entire neighborhood was built in the late 1950s and early 1960s, had been a "tailings deposit." Tailings are the remains of the mining process after the sought-for minerals have been taken out.
But Gordon said the property was "just farm fields" before homes in the development were built along new streets named after presidents, such as Washington, Lincoln, Grant and Madison.
The area lies near the base of Hamburg and Sparta mountains to the east and the Wallkill River to the west, which means the natural flow of ground water would be down the mountains to the river.
Gordon said there has been lots of rain in the area over the past month. The National Weather Service automated station at the Sussex Airport, a couple miles northwest of the borough, had recorded nearly 4 inches of rain in the week before, including 2.4-inches that weekend.
The chief said the state building inspector condemned the property, declaring it a hazard. As a result, the Sewatskys have not been allowed to get back inside.
Because the borough is small, it relies on the state to provide building inspector services and that person is only at the borough hall one day a week.
According to county property records the family bought the house in March 2021, for $350,000. The 1,833 square-foot house was built in 1960 and sits on a nearly half-acre corner lot.
This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Ogdensburg NJ couple forced from home by collapsing wall
