HOUSTON - by Kevin Reece/KHOU 11 News and www.khou.com - Toilets, bathtubs, and sinks in two southeast Houston houses became fecal fountains Thursday afternoon when a City of Houston Public Works employee tried to clear a clogged sewer line and sent the sewage, at high pressure, in entirely the wrong direction.
Alfredo Nuno’s home at Greendowns Street and the Gulf Freeway was the hardest hit. The sewage exploded through his toilet and bathtub, showering the bathroom with fecal matter and spreading sewer water of various consistencies down the hallway, into his bedroom, and through the bathroom wall flooding his kitchen.
“They ruined my house,” he said while leading us to the rental unit in his backyard where his brother’s apartment suffered the same fate.
Behind that, a neighbor’s house on Southern Street received the same treatment. Ana Zamorano stood outside her rental home refusing to go back inside. The stench was unbearable.
“There’s nothing I can do now. Look I haven’t even changed,” she said still wearing her work uniform. “It’s ridiculous. It stinks too bad in there. Seriously it does,” Zamorano said.
“I don’t know what to say that it smells like,” said Nuno choosing his words carefully. “The thing that comes out from your behind.”
A spokesperson for the City of Houston Public Works confirms that a city employee was cleaning a sewer line behind a home on Greendowns Street three houses away from Nuno’s home. Grease often collects in and clogs sewer drains. That’s what Alvin Wright with the Public Works Department believes the worker was trying to clear. But he says the high pressure water the worker was using may have cleared the clog so quickly that the high pressure in shot the wrong direction before he could turn it off.
So we asked Alfredo Nuno what he expects from the city in return.
“Clean it up. Clean it up and make an estimate of the walls that got messed up and as soon as possible fix it. That’s what I want,” Nuno said.
But while he got an apology from the city employee who caused the showering sewage, protocol stipulates that the city will not automatically accept responsibility.
A supervisor with Houston Public Works visited his home late Thursday night and informed him he would have to arrange clean up himself and file a claim with the city attorney’s office. The city will then decide if he will be compensated for the damage to his home and for the cost of the hotel room he will have to live in until his house is habitable again.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “They ruined my house,” he said. “Now what am I going to do.”
Read more: http://www.kfdm.com/...l#ixzz1nUq6Re79
