Residents battle sewage backup

City steps up to help

JOLIET -- Trista Brown and a few of her neighbors woke up on Oct. 23 to find a messy sludge in their basements.

It was sewage backup, and it wasn't pretty.

The city's sewer line had become blocked. And, a steady rain in the preceding hours forced the muck and mire of the city's sewer system into several homes near the corner of Raynor Avenue and John Street.

"I woke up at 6 o'clock in the morning to the smell of fumes," said Brown, who at first thought there was a gas leak. "I went downstairs into the basement, and it was like a flood."

Except instead of stepping into water, Brown was knee deep in -- well, sewage.

Brown called the city and went to City Hall for days looking for help but to no avail.

However, on Thursday -- six days after the backup and after the sewer water had receded -- city officials visited Brown's house on North Raynor Avenue and determined the situation was so bad that the city would help. A cleanup crew was working in her basement Thursday and Friday.

City Utilities Director James Eggen said the city believes the blockage can be traced to a state road crew working on Jefferson Street in the summer. Asphalt probably fell down a manhole and debris had been piling up since, leading to the total blockage that occurred Oct. 23.

A city work crew, which responded immediately to the situation and freed up the blockage that day, found asphalt in the sewer line.

Brown's house, Eggen said, "was the first from where that blockage occurred. The other houses on John Street got a little bit of water. But they didn't get it to the extent she did."

The city agrees to help out residents at times, Eggen said, but it's on a case-by-case basis depending on the circumstances.

In Brown's case, one of the circumstances also may have been repeated phone calls and visits to City Hall demanding that someone come to her house to at least look at what happened.

At one point, Brown said, "I told them, 'I've got all your sewage in my basement. I need you to take a look at it.'"

Eggen said he knew of four houses that got sewage in the basement.

"I'm still disinfecting," said Laura Randles, a John Street resident. "This whole week it's been cleaning and disinfecting."

Unlike Brown, Randles didn't appeal to the city for help, even though Joliet does have a process for making claims when residents believe they suffered damages at the fault of the city.

"I don't foresee them doing anything about it," Randles said when interviewed Thursday hours before the city offered to help Brown.

But Randles said her house sustained damages from sewer backups years ago before the city made significant upgrades in the system. Back then, Randles said, she was always told the backups were the result of "an act of God."

"We've thrown out so many carpets and rugs it's ridiculous," Randles said.

She estimates the damages in her basement to be in the hundreds of dollars,

Brown expects extensive repairs and said she has been told the damages will be in the thousands of dollars.

Adam Rodriguez is another John Street resident whose basement got sewage on Oct. 23. His wife made a call to the city and hung up with the sense that they were on their own, Rodriguez said: "A man made a comment to my wife, 'Do you think we're going to send someone out to clean it for you?"