Southwest Detroit Residents Report Unresolved Damage Claims One Year After Water Main Break

Families in Southwest Detroit still wrestle with unpaid claims and broken homes. One year has passed since a 54-inch water main ruptured on Feb. 17 of last year. That break sent up to four feet of water crashing through the area. About 150 families had to leave. Rescue teams used rafts. Freezing temperatures made everything worse.

Carmen Vega's house was hit hard. She now uses clamps to keep her foundation from falling apart. She got a new furnace and water heater, but that's it. A contractor looked at the damage and said repairs would cost $177,000. The payout? Just $30,400, as per Click On Detroit.

Jimmy Rios works as a plumber in the area, but he became someone who fights for his neighbors after the flood. He said many families got tangled in red tape. "Files were lost, people had to start over again," Rios said. "A lot of folks started to feel worn down by the process."

Two hundred homes were damaged that day. Mike and Michelle Muzzey lost everything in their basement—the furnace, water tank, pictures, and power tools all got destroyed.

"I could not believe it was coming through the windows," Mike Muzzey said, according to WXYZ. Water climbed to the eighth step on their stairs.

Sam Smalley works as Deputy Director at Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. He insists the agencies kept their word to fix the damage and divide uninsured losses between DWSD and the Great Lakes Water Authority. "We have processed hundreds of claims," Smalley said, as per Click On Detroit.

Gary Brown runs DWSD. He said no one could have stopped the break. "These 54-inch pipes are under pressure, there's water flowing through them, they're not accessible," Brown said, according to WXYZ.

The city puts the total bill for recovery and repairs at about $12 million. That money gets split among DWSD, GLWA, and the City of Detroit. Brown said officials have settled almost 100% of claims, with just 2-3 left.

Marissa Sura works in public relations and social media for Mackinaw Administrators, as per Click On Detroit. She said fewer than a handful of claims wait for claimants to respond. The third-party administrator ran the claims process.

Rios said first settlements were too small. Offers included a 40 percent depreciation rate. Residents who pushed back sometimes got better deals, with depreciation closer to 25 percent.

Peter Fromm directs Water Transmission at GLWA. He said the authority manages around 400 miles of pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipes throughout their system. The break came from an "unprecedented weld failure" in the steel main, which is almost 100 years old.

GLWA plans to start a pilot program in March. It will use electromagnetic technology to check the condition of steel pipes across its system.