“This is ridiculous,” said Mulcock, who also lost a furnace and water heater that were installed four days ago. His home’s lower level took in 2½ feet of water during Wednesday’ water main break.
The water main break was just west of one that occurred Jan. 28 near the roundabout of Kyles Station and Yankee roads. In that break, nearly 600,000 gallons of water were estimated to have been lost, according to Butler County Water and Sewer Department.
“(The county was) in the process of fixing the pipe, but (a water main break) happened again,” said Butler County Commissioner T.C. Rogers, who stopped by Mulcock’s home Wednesday. “It’s an unfortunate situation and we’ve turned it over to CORSA.”
CORSA — or County Risk Sharing Authority — is the county’s insurance carrier.
CORSA denied the Mulcock’s claims after the first water main break, but Rogers said, “we’ve talked to them. The county is going to pay for actual damages.”
That appears to be the case as CORSA dispatched water damage crews to Mulcock’s home and to the home of his neighbor, Susan Rogers, whose home was also damaged in Wednesday’s water main break.
“The first time, we couldn’t get CORSA on the phone. Today, they called me,” Mulcock said.
Susan Rogers, who has lived in her home since 1997, said she awoke about 2:40 a.m. to what “sounded like someone or a car hitting my garage door or something hard.”
She looked out the window and said, “it looked like a river flowing … It broke the bottom garage door panels.”
Susan Rogers said she grabbed her keys and got her car out of the garage and up to the road where there was higher ground.
While she had some insurance after the January water main break, it had a $5,000 cap. Until this morning, she said Butler County had not done anything to resolve her first claims.
After getting her car out, Susan Rogers took photos of the today’s flooding and sent them and a text to a CORSA representative she dealt with last month. She said the CORSA representative texted back: “OMG.”
Susan Rogers also said this was not the first time there had been a water main break on her road. She said about five years ago, a water main break flooded two houses to the west of her home.
Bob Leventry, director of Butler County Water and Sewer Department, said they were already working on getting easements across the road to relocate the water line where there is also a drainage ditch.
The cast iron water main that broke Wednesday morning was likely due to age, according to Leventry. It was originally built in 1973, he said.
“We need to look at the options, identify the option and implement it in the next two weeks,” he said.
He also said that the damages from both floods would be covered by the county and CORSA.
“My heart really goes out to these property owners,” Leventry said.
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