Winter storms left Atascadero family’s home uninhabitable. Now, they’re suing the city

San Luis Obispo County was battered by rain last winter, including a historic storm in March that caused an estimated $40 million in damages to infrastructure county-wide.

Despite the damage, many residents were unaffected by the storms and have been able to move on with their lives — but not the Spiller family.

For more than eight months, the Spiller home off of San Ramon Road in Atascadero has been red-tagged — meaning it is unsafe to occupy — due to the erosion of the land where the property sits.

In September, homeowner Aaron Spiller filed a lawsuit against the city of Atascadero, alleging it failed to maintain Graves Creek after it first showed signs of flooding when multiple atmospheric rivers hit the county between January and March.

The flooding of Graves Creek coupled with the heavy rains eroded the creek bank beneath the Spiller property so much that the home and land became unsafe to occupy, Spiller said.

This has left the Spiller family — which includes Aaron Spiller, his wife Katie and two children, one of whom requires special accommodations — living in a rental house in Atascadero while their home sits vacant, the red tag still duct-taped to their burgundy front door.

“The time that has gone into this,” Spiller said, “it’s kind of consumed our year.”

Terrie Banish, director of community services and events for the city of Atascadero, declined The Tribune’s request for an interview with the Public Works Department about the Spiller’s lawsuit and other flood damage to private properties throughout the city, citing potential litigation.

She did supply a statement:

“During the January and March 2023 storms, Public Works was responding to reports all across the city that included plugged culverts and drains, downed trees blocking roads, flooded roads and several bridges over Atascadero Creek being overtopped,” Banish wrote in the emailed statement.

“While the city cannot perform work on private property, during and immediately following the storm events, staff from all departments answered phones, responded to emails and posts and provided information on available resources, encouraged property owners to take the necessary steps to protect themselves and their properties, and pointed them in the direction of a variety of services needed depending upon the situation or concern,” the statement said.

The full statement from the City of Atascadero is available at bit.ly/Atascadero-statement.

City of Atascadero statement regarding storm-related damage by Kaytlyn Leslie on Scribd

Rain, flooding, erosion: How the elements left Atascadero home uninhabitable

The Spiller family purchased their home at 1210 San Ramon Road in 2010.

“It’s been a great home for our kids to be really active,” Spiller said. “We had a very nice backyard that was fully fenced in. … It’s been a great house for us.”

The three-bed, two-bath home sits on just under an acre of land adjacent to Graves Creek, which flows parallel to the larger Atascadero Creek, Spiller said.

Just past the Spillers’ backyard fence line was a slope that formed the east bank of the creek as it ran behind their home and neighboring houses.

For 13 years, the creek water levels would rise and fall without incident, Spiller said. The family lived, worked and played at the home without thinking much of the potential for damage from the creek

“There have been times over the years where (Graves Creek) fills up and the water gets high, but I’ve never had any damage or erosion,” he said.

But in early January, the first of the storms hit, creating an atmospheric river that didn’t let up for days at a time.

On Jan. 10, the Atascadero City Council issued an emergency declaration related to the storms that identified Graves Creek and other bodies of water in the city as at risk of flooding.

The declaration said the storm “caused and continues to cause damage to public and private property in the city of Atascadero.”

Despite the emergency declaration, Spiller said his home weathered the January storms without damage.

Spiller said on Jan. 22, his neighbor mentioned that a large oak tree fell upstream of Graves Creek, damming it upstream from the home.

Spiller said it was unclear from the beginning who was responsible for removing the fallen oak tree.

“When it comes to the creek there is so much confusion,” he said.

In his lawsuit, Spiller claimed another severe storm battered the area in early March, dislodging the tree from its position upstream. It then became trapped by fallen debris further downstream.

The fallen tree and storm debris created a dam adjacent to the Spiller home that rerouted stormwater directly into the creek bank below their backyard, the lawsuit claimed.

“On March 10, I woke up and came out to my living room and at some point, I see there was a pine tree in my lawn,” Spiller told The Tribune. The pine tree had fallen over because “everything underneath it had now been eroded out,” he said.

“That was when I first saw there were major problems,” he said.

Spiller went to Atascadero City Hall later that day where he met in-person with a Public Works official and asked the city to “take immediate action to remove the oak tree from the creek before more damage to his property occurred,” court documents said.

He emailed a video to the city showing the damage to his property, which prompted Matthew Pigeon, deputy public works director for the city of Atascadero, to send an email to city staff about the damage to the Spiller home.

The flood and rain damage on March 10 caused immense erosion to the Spiller’s property such that “there was a threat to health and safety,” according to an email Pigeon sent to city staff, which was obtained in a Public Records Act request by The Tribune.

Because of the safety concerns, the city sent the fire department to the Spiller’s property, where they set up some caution tape and left after about an hour, the lawsuit said.

Public Works workers did not come to the property that day or in the days following, Spiller said.

Lawsuit claims Atascadero city officials ignored homeowner’s requests

The next day, March 11, the water receded and revealed the root of the problem, Spiller said: “the tree and the debris, created a dam and the water was rerouted into the creek bank on my side of the creek, and it just kept eroding.”

Spiller recruited the help of friends and family and took a chainsaw down to the creek to try and break down the oak tree and storm debris, but they were unsuccessful.

“My 76-year-old father was out there with an electric saw, cutting — my sister-in-law was out there,” he said. “Just the sheer mass of it was not something that we were going to be able to correct.”

Another storm hit March 15, which caused the creek to flow stronger and faster, pushing the fallen oak and pile of storm debris further downstream toward the Spiller home. The dam rerouted the rushing water and eroded the creek bank that held up the Spiller’s property, he said.

Spiller sent an email just after midnight on March 16 to the Atascadero Office of Emergency Services and Public Works departments, asking for a swift response by the city to help save his home, according to the documents obtained by The Tribune.

“Currently the diverted creek bank is about five feet from the foundation of my house,” the email said.

He requested the city remove the debris damming the creek and redirect the water away from the creek bank — and back along its natural course — and reinforce the creek bank to prevent more erosion.

The email was forwarded to numerous city officials, including Lori Azeem, associate civil engineer and stormwater manager, who then contacted the Atascadero City Fire Department by email, saying the city could not be involved until the foundation of the building was threatened, documents acquired by The Tribune show.

“This may be close to that situation,” Azeem said in the email.

About 12 hours after the original email was sent by Spiller, the email was forwarded from the general Public Works email to multiple city officials along with a supplemental, signed by a city employee named Darcy, whose last name was not included in the email signature:

“Matt (Pigeon) was also going to tell him again that Public Works is not going to go out and assess the situation,” read the missive. “The property along the creek is city-owned. I am not sure where the tree that fell originated from.”

Darcy said in the email that they spoke with Spiller on the phone urging him to call 911 and leave the property for his safety.

Despite forwarding the email internally, no one from the city replied directly to Spiller’s email or came to the property on March 16, according to the records obtained by The Tribune.

On March 17, a city building inspector came to San Ramon Road and red-tagged the house, deeming it unsafe for the family to return home, according to the lawsuit. The day after that, a service provider was contacted, and on March 19, the fallen oak and storm debris was removed from Graves Creek.

But removing the tree failed to solve the problem, Spiller said.

The architecture of the creek changed such that the water continues to flow into the creek bank below his property, further eroding the land that keeps his home from falling into the rushing creek water, he said.

Atascadero family sues city for failing to maintain Graves Creek

The financial burden of the damage to the Spiller’s property has been substantial for the family.

Spiller first contacted his home insurance provider on March 10 about the erosion, and the insurance claim was quickly denied on the basis that earth movement caused the damage, he said. He has since disputed the claim.

In April, representatives reached out to Spiller and said the city was trying to get the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for the damage to his home, he said.

At that time, FEMA had not extended individual assistance grants to individuals for storm-related damage, he said.

On April 20, Scott Jalbert, San Luis Obispo County emergency services manager, sent an email to various officials saying FEMA representatives would be touring storm-damaged properties throughout the county to determine if San Luis Obispo County qualified for individual assistance grants.

Former Atascadero City Manager Rachelle Rickard responded directly to Jalbert and asked for the Spiller’s property at 1210 San Ramon Road be included in the FEMA tour, according to the city documents obtained by The Tribune.

“This is going to be an expensive one to fix,” Rickard said in the email.

FEMA representatives allegedly came to the property, Spiller said, but he was not present at the time of the inspection. He previously contacted the Public Works department, asking to be on his property at the time of the tour, he said.

Spiller later applied for individual assistance with FEMA and received a $14,000 grant, “which, really, is a drop in the bucket,” he said.

A preliminary bid showed the repairs to the land at 1210 San Ramon Road — which would include debris removal, rebuilding the access road, replacing landscaping and more — could cost $882,000, Spiller said.

The house itself has not been formally assessed for damage, he said.

On May 3, city officials distributed a flood damage inventory spreadsheet internally that estimated the cost to remove debris from the portion of Graves Creek behind the Spiller home would cost the city about $100,000, documents show.

In July, Spiller filed a pre-litigation claim against the city of Atascadero, asserting it failed to maintain Graves Creek prior to the storm and was negligent in the decision to leave the fallen oak tree and storm debris in the creek, allowing the erosion of Spiller’s property until it became uninhabitable.

During an Atascadero City Council meeting on Aug. 30, Public Works issued a staff report recommending the council award a roughly $250,000 contract to a service provider to expedite debris and vegetation removal on city property along Atascadero and Graves creeks.

Public Works noted that meteorologists predicted the upcoming winter will be an El Niño year, meaning more heavy rains could fall on San Luis Obispo County and exacerbate damage to storm-hit properties.

The staff recommendation to invest in creek maintenance that could cost roughly $330,000 was approved by council members.

About two weeks later on Sept. 13, Spiller’s attorneys filed the official lawsuit against the city of Atascadero with the San Luis Obispo Superior Court.

“I didn’t feel like I had any other choice,” Spiller said. “I’m from here. I’m probably the last person you’d ever expect a lawsuit from. But I tried communicating with the city, … then they just stopped talking to me. Finally I say, ‘Are you guys gonna do anything?’ And they said ‘no.’”

Atascadero homeowner renting as home sits damaged and empty

The displacement has been rough on the Spiller family.

For months, the family of four and their dog lived in a one-bedroom apartment.

Spiller said his son is sensitive to changes and the disruption has been particularly hard for him.

Eventually, Spiller realized the house will likely stay red-tagged for a while and moved his family into a rental house in Atascadero. Although it felt like a “castle” compared to the one-bedroom they were in for most of 2023, Spiller said, it isn’t home.

Spiller said he contacted an attorney who deals primarily with insurance companies and got his homeowner’s insurance company to reopen his claim, but has yet to receive an update.

“The difficult part (of) this is it’s not like something happened and I can receive money to fix my house,” he said. “A big part of this is the river. The creek bank is not something that I can even really do construction on … it’s not my land.”

The Spiller’s home mortgage is in forbearance until December. After that, he doesn’t know what will happen to his monthly payment.

Ultimately, Spiller would like to receive the funds to replace the damage to his property and have the city repair the creek bank and somehow replace the land that washed away.

The city has denied responsibility for the damages, Spiller said, and the lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in January 2024.

“I think long term, this may take a while, but, the legal facts I think ultimately will come out in my favor,” Spiller said.