Melissa Chan Nicole Johnson, who has had to clean feces off her bathroom floor, is demanding answers from the city after her Queens Village home suddenly started taking on sewage from rainstorms. This is a real crap shoot.
When it rains, it pours in Queens Village — and feces spews out of tubs and toilets, covering some basements with repulsive sewage, fuming homeowners told the Daily News.
Torrential downpours have deluged homes along 206th St. at least three times since April when the city’s Department of Environmental Protection wrapped up a project apparently meant to ease sidewalk flooding, longtime residents said.
“My nerves are shook!” said Nicole Johnson, 43. “Every time it rains, sewer water comes out the tub. It shoots up out of the toilet. Feces and everything comes in. It rushes in like a fire hydrant opening up. You can’t stop it!”
Johnson, a Long Island Rail Road employee, has spent $ 5,000 so far on insurance deductibles to fix the waterlogged basement her family sleeps in and on a new water heater after her old one was “knocked out” by the flood.
She lost furniture and clothes and still needs to repair walls damaged by the foot of water her basement took on during the first surprise surge on April 30, which was the tenth-wettest day in New York City history, officials said.
“The water was so high,” Johnson said. “It was up to my calf. It’s been a nightmare. Who can live like this?”
The sewage came rushing in within seconds, said Johnson and her neighbor, Lillie Marwieh, 67. It cost Marwieh a total of $ 3,500 to repair her home. She and Johnson have filed numerous complaints with 311 since the April 30 nightmare.
“It came in like Niagara Falls,” said Marwieh, a retiree who has been living on the street for 30 years. “I was sitting down and water started rising to my ankles.”
“I had to rip up carpeting, throw out furniture,” she added. “It happened three times and we’ve never had a problem before this. We’re on fixed incomes. We’re not rich. We can’t afford this.”
That day’s record-breaking downpour dumped 4.97 inches of rain in Central Park and caused widespread flooding, especially in Lindenwood, Queens, where a sewer facility was malfunctioning due to water excess, the DEP said.
It is unclear why homes in Queens Village without chronic flood problems were suddenly taking on water.
A DEP spokeswoman said the agency is aware of the complaints and is investigating the cause.
“Every time it rains, we hold our breaths,” said Marwieh, who recently started wearing a heart monitor.
“It’s really taking a toll,” she added. “It’s overly stressful. This is not a way to live.”
Yahoo Local News – New York Daily News
http://ift.tt/1q6oHtz
via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1
No comments:
Post a Comment