By DOUG RUSSELL

News Editor

They’ve found a house to rent, but that doesn’t mean things are going to be easy on them. After all, Jeff Swartzlander said, “Now we’ll be paying rent in addition to a second set of bills and paying a mortgage on a house we can’t live in.”

Swartzlander, his wife, Cristina, and their two young children were forced to leave their home on Green Meadows Drive when sewage poured through the drains on March 9.

“It came up everywhere,” said Pat Spearman, Jeff Swartzlander’s mother. “It filled the sinks and ran down the cabinets, the bathtub, the dishwasher — everything on the floor is ruined.”

Spearman had rushed to the home as soon as her daughter-in-law called. Jeff was out of town on business and wouldn’t be able to get home for half a day.

And what he saw when he arrived shocked him.

“Sewage was everywhere,” he said. “On the cabinets, the floor — it had gotten into the walls and wet the drywall. It was bad.”

The once-beige carpet of the home was black. Moisture discolored the walls as high as four feet in some places.

And cleaning up the home didn’t completely solve the problem.

“Now we’ve got black mold,” Jeff said. “That can be dangerous for little children. I’m not going to endanger my children by taking them back into a house that’s not safe.”

Even if the walls of the home were sealed with a sealant and repainted, he said, he’s been told mycotoxins could remain. “The only way to fix it now is to tear out the walls and insulation and replace them,” he said.

While denying responsibility for the flood of sewage, the city of McAlester is helping the young family, as well as a neighbor who was also flooded by sewage.

City Manager Susan Monroe said “Our insurance company said the city is not liable since this was basically an act of God.” Still, Monroe has authorized some city money to be used to help the young family. “We recognize it’s a big situation though, and the city engineer and the risk management officer said it would be the right thing to do to try to help them,” she said.

The city put the Swartzlanders up in a local motel until they could either move back into their house or find another place to live.

“I’m glad of that,” Jeff Swartzlander said as he took a break from packing up his vehicle Friday. “But renting a place still doesn’t make it home.”

The Swartzlander’s new landlord has agreed to allow them to rent on a month by month basis, without the necessity of a lease, and the family hopes to be able to return to its home soon.

City officials approved a new carpet for the Green Meadows Drive home last week, Swartzlander said.

“But it’s still not in. Even when it is, we’ve still got the mold.”

City officials said they believe a sudden influx of water following weeks of dry weather caused debris to block a line. The blockage cause sewage to back up until it could escape the lines from another route — the drains of the two homes.

Businesses flooded

Blocked lines also played a part in flooding four McAlester businesses Sunday, officials said.

The Friendship House, Shovelheads Bar & Grill, Answering Service of McAlester and Handy Stop No. 2 were flooded when sewage came up through the drains and toilets early Sunday morning.

One has yet to reopen.

Jerry Little, who, along with his wife Donna, owns the Handy Stop stores in McAlester, declined to comment on the flood or the damage it caused. However a glance inside the store at 1000 N. Main St., which is a popular gathering place for early morning coffee drinkers, gives some indication of the devastation since moisture-soaked sheetrock has been replaced and a carpet has been ripped out.

North and west of the store, the answering service employees huddle in one small room, rather than working in three as they did before the flood.

The building owner was almost finished with a remodeling job when the flood of sewage came in, according to business owner Susie Rice. Now the remodeling has taken a setback.

“That bathroom was finished,” Rice said, waving toward one of two restrooms in the back of the building. “It was completely done.”

Now the tiles are gone, pulled up to keep sewage from drying under them and giving mold a place to grow. The sink’s gone too, since the pressboard vanity enclosing it soaked up water like a sponge and began falling apart.

In fact, both bathrooms give the appearance of being hastily and incompletely installed, since bare pipe juts from the walls where the sinks and vanities once were.

“I was literally having to scrape black stuff off the toilets,” Rice said, adding she was first notified of the flood early Sunday morning.

The answering service operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, since it serves eight rural fire departments as well as a number of individuals and businesses. At about 4 a.m. Sunday, Rice said, she received a call telling her she needed to go to the building and get what she could out because sewage was coming in.

Building owner Ralph Suter and other answering service employees joined Rice at the building, trying to save as much as possible from the flood.

“The toilets looked like black geysers,” Rice said. “It was just coming in faster than you’d believe.”

Employees opened a back door and grabbed brooms to try to push the water out of the building “But it kept coming in faster than we could get it out,” she said.

Through it all, the business continued to operate.

“I have eight fire departments to answer for,” Rice said. “I can’t shut down.”

A team specializing in cleaning environmental waste came in and cleaned up most of the mess, but that didn’t take care of the entire problem.

“It stank,” said Melba Rice. “The smell was awful.”

“I inhaled so much I got sick every time I came in the building,” said Susie. “I told the employees that if anyone couldn’t handle it, I’d understand, but they’ve all been wonderful.

“There’s a lot of people who depend on us and my employees have been wonderful.”

More cleaning — and a more than generous supply of bleach — have stopped the sewage smell, but the business office of the answering service remains closed for now, as do several other rooms. “I had to grab files and just shove them in boxes,” Rice said. “I didn’t want them to get ruined by sewer water.”

Rice said she’s been through quite a few things since she first began operating the answering service some years ago. There was the time the city tore up the street in front of the business and people couldn’t reach it, there was the ice storm of 2000 — “But this has been the worst.”

“Things happen,” Rice said. “That’s really all I can say. Things happen.”

Blocked manholes

City workers rushing to North Main Street early Sunday couldn’t clear the blocked sewer lines immediately. That’s because they had to get to them first, something that was hampered by the fact two manhole covers in the area were buried under several inches of asphalt.

Still, city officials said the asphalt didn’t slow efforts to clear the blockage by much, since crews on call had access to a jackhammer and city maps showed them exactly where the manholes were located.

Using a truck with a 1,500-gallon tank and a high pressure hose, the workers cleared the blockage, but not before the businesses suffered damage.

Main Street is a state highway, maintained by the state, which buried the manhole covers while resurfacing North Main Street.

City Engineer George Marcangeli said the city had little opportunity to raise the manholes before they were paved over. However, he said, even if the manholes had been more easily accessible, “That wouldn’t have prevented this from happening.”

City crews maintain 154 miles of sewer line, in addition to at least an equal amount of water line and the storm water drainage system. Crews generally try to check for blockages at places where they know problems occur, but can’t routinely check the entire system.

“In all my years with the city, we’ve never had a problem there before,” Marcangeli said. “That blockage was totally unexpected.”

Claims

City employees routinely give claim forms to property owners and others who are affected by things such as sewer backups, said Assistant City Manager Bart Van Nieuwenhuise. Once filled out, the forms are turned over to the city’s insurance company, which processes the claims and either agrees to pay them or denies them.

“Generally, as long as the city is doing everything we’re supposed to do, like regular maintenance, the city isn’t held liable,” Van Nieuwenhuise said, adding property owners can usually get insurance coverage for things such as backed up sewer lines.

The city’s insurance company generally looks at cases such as floods after heavy rains as “An act of God,” Monroe said.
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Jimmy McDonald
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