An unforeseen incident resulted in water gushing into three homes, causing considerable damage and putting the City of Frisco in homeowners’ crosshairs.
The Peebles and Lee families, both first-time homeowners, reside in two of the homes on Coneflower Drive damaged in the wake of a busted water pipe on August 12.
“It looked like a little river outside our backyard. It was just currents flowing,” Samantha Lee explained to WFAA.
The busted pipe was located on city property, and it took two hours for staff to turn the water off.
A total of three houses sustained damage as a result of the gushing water.
For the Lees, their master bedroom and bathroom were inaccessible for more than a month while repairs to the floor and walls were being done.
As they explained to WFAA, it was apparent to them that the pipe was busted as the result of construction work done by the city behind their houses.
The contractors had been working there for months and had tapped into the main water line shortly before the incident to be able to irrigate plants along a new walking path.
“Clearly to me, it’s not that hard to figure out. This is their fault … you guys did this,” Jamie Peebles told WFAA.
“For me, it was obvious they needed to be responsible for this,” added Kylie Peebles, Jamie’s wife.
When the two families reached out to the city, they were connected to the Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool (TML), which handles these sorts of claims. Yet TML responded weeks later by denying liability for the damage since it hadn’t been directly caused by a city employee using motorized equipment.
“‘I’m so sorry.’ That’s what we got basically,” Lee said.
Yet there may be some hope to be made whole after all.
Mayor Jeff Cheney empathized with the residents’ predicament, telling WFAA, “We understand our residents’ frustrations. Any water damage to anyone’s property is unfortunate. Given the circumstances, we’re going to ask TML to take another look at the situation.”