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DWP Has Left Studio City High and Dry After Burst Water Main |
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Written by Christopher Davidson, Studio City News
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Thursday, 11 March 2010 03:01 |
It’s been months since DWP’s 62-inch 95 year old water main located at Coldwater Canyon Boulevard and Dickens Street ruptured at approximately 10:20 PM, Saturday Sept. 5th.
The main, which had already been placed on the DWP short list for urgently needed repairs, is a major trunk line that takes water from the Los Angeles Reservoir to the Franklin Reservoir. Water under that much pressure in order to move up into the hills peeled the top of the pipe away “like the lid of a sardine can,” said Kim Hughes, a spokeswoman for the DWP.
In a matter of seconds with the force of a runaway freight train, thousands of gallons of water rushed into the unprotected ground floors of buildings on Dickens St. and Ventura Boulevard . Cars with their trapped drivers were carried along by the surge; low brick walls were knocked down and homes flooded. Over 150 Firefighters worked for hours, using sand bags and K-rails to protect property. Local homes and businesses were flooded, one victim requiring rescuing from a vehicle, but no injuries were reported. The flow from the broken pipe was stopped after about four hours and the annoyance seemly had ended. But then came a new annoyance for the flooded residents. They had to deal with the DWP to recover damages.
Today, at first glance, the neighborhood seems back to normal. Along Ventura Boulevard just west of Coldwater Canyon, the Studio Oaks Park has reopened and the restaurants are busy again. Just under this veneer of rebirth, however, dozens of homeowners and small businesses remain unoccupied or under renovation, and are struggling to survive because the damages, physical and psychological, are still with them.
Allison Rubke, co-owner with her mother Gaili of Faire Frou Frou, a boutique which carries some of the most high-end European lingerie available in the US, has been closed since September but will reopen at the end of March. She had this to say about her DWP experience. “I haven’t had a decent night of sleep since 1 AM September 6, ...days are filled with stress, because another bill comes due and we’re wondering how it’s going to get paid. First, a cleanup company charged me $26,000 to package everything up and clean out the store. Then, for six months I’ve had to get used to being told “no” and being treated like a criminal. Now we’ve finally hired two attorneys, one to handle the claims we’ve made with our insurers and the other to handle DWP. I want to keep a good reputation with my suppliers but its hard. We’ve just barely been able to come up with the funds to reopen the store.”
Il Tramezzino, one of three sandwich restaurants in LA County owned by Rick Walken and Veronique DeLestang, was reopened at Christmas after a $250,000 renovation thanks to money from its own insurance company.
Said Walken, “I’ve lived in this neighborhood since 1950; I left a career in set design for this restaurant . I built this branch with my own tools. We worked hard and became successful, had terrific lunch traffic from the studios- CBS, Disney. Then it’s all destroyed in one night. How can Mayor Villaraigosa pose with a firetruck that fell into a sinkhole, but not bother to visit us, [after this] when we’re creating jobs and serving citizens in the Valley?” One Il Tramezzino employee had parked his new $12,000 car in the lot outside the restaurant; it was destroyed. The employee had to buy another car and received no monetary refund from the DWP. “He doesn’t make much more than $12000 in a year working for us,” Walken said.
While the Studio City branch of Le Pain Quotidien - an international chain of organic bakeries - was closed for four months, Coffee Bean And Tea Leaf for five, both have reopened. Children’s clothing retailer Little Stinker also reopened at the end of February, with the Stacey Todd store reopening soon.
However, some shops are not so lucky. The antique furniture store The Atik has a “for lease” sign up after its contents were ruined.
There are problems because the DWP seemingly changed their procedures “in midstream.” In December, the LA City Council organized a meeting with the residents and businesses hurt by the flooding. DWP representatives walked the audience through the claims filing process, making the explicit point that victims would not need original receipts to document every article they were claiming if they included reasonable evidence for the article’s value on the open market just before it was damaged or destroyed.
How did this DWP benevolence work in practice? Building contractor Michael Yaghoubi is still overseeing remodeling work on his home along Ventura Boulevard, across from the Studio Oaks Park, and hopes to complete work before his wife gives birth in August. “The DWP is harassing our contractors about what they call “unnecessary repairs.” What are we supposed to do? The house was under eight inches of water.”
Dickens Street resident Jay Cohen jumped through DWP’s hoops. Immediately after the flood, he filed a claim for flood damages to his front yard, and for the destruction of furniture and electronic equipment stored in a poolhouse and shed that got flooded during the water main break. In order to reduce the stress on his wife and three children, he made a list of the damaged items and their approximate age, then hired a licensed inventory company to catalog and package damaged items, looked up their market value on Yahoo and Google, then recorded their value and their approximate age. He included this information, along with pictures of his damaged yard, when filing his claim.
He received this response via email from DWP claims representative J.R. White:
“In reviewing the paperwork... we are surprised to note that although you include a DVD with news broadcast reports and a listing of items prepared by a pack up company, you do not provide any photographs of the items that you claim actually are damaged or of your residence... [Please] provide the following: an explanation of why the pack up company was hired, and why the listed items needed to be packed and put into storage...The location within your household from where the items inventoried by the pack up company were removed... A list of which of the inventoried items that actually sustained damage... photographs of the items actually damaged... The steps you took to mitigate the damage or clean up any damaged items. [Reasons why] damaged items are not able to be cleaned or repaired... the age of the items you are claiming as damaged... where purchased, please provide a purchase receipt or credit card statement or cancelled check... reasons why the listed articles of clothing, pillows and bedding had to be dry cleaned-why a swim suit was dry cleaned. Please advise need for 65 pounds of laundry to be done... Thank you for your anticipated understanding and cooperation...”
In Cohen’s view, the email implied the need for documentation - i.e. receipts - that the DWP had earlier explicitly stated were not necessary, and he responded angrily: “You have a lot of nerve trying to put the burden on innocent citizens that were royally screwed by the DWP!”
The claim representative’s emailed response expressed “concern” that “it will be difficult to conclude your claim if you choose not to cooperate...” and mentioned DWP’s “ fiduciary duty to exercise all necessary caution... before paying out... public funds [for] claimed amount that is not supported with detail and documentation sufficient to satisfy our auditors and the Controller’s office...”
In other words: where are the receipts?
Email exchanges between Cohen, the DWP, and the City Attorney’s office continued in this vein until January, when the DWP made a final offer of $15,000 to settle the claim on damages that Cohen had estimated at S120,000. By this time, Cohen had been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, which he claimed was the result of stress brought on by the flooding and its aftermath, and he decided to sue the DWP rather than accept the settlement.
When asked about the discrepancy The DWP had this to say: “we recognize that individuals will not have receipts for every loss claimed especially older ones. However, we do require documentation where it should be reasonably available as noted above. To require less than that which should be readily available to a claimant would invite inflated and unsubstantiated claims.”
Michael Yaghoubi and several other homeowners interviewed for this article have not yet received any response from DWP about their claims. Yet the DWP says to this date it has paid out $504,045.75 for 43 claims related to the Coldwater Canyon incident in Studio City. Four of the claims received have been declined and 30 others are currently undetermined and/or undocumented and remain under investigation and review. There are open offers of settlement for six claims, and several others are in the process of being negotiated with the claimants.
There have been 92 unique claims received to date related to the Coldwater Canyon break. Homeowners/Tenants: had 69 claims. These are broken down to 39 claims from homeowners and tenants. 30 are subrogation claims from Insurers; insured homeowners/tenants have already been paid by insurer. Businesses had 23 claims: 11 from business owners, 12 subrogation claims from businesses’ insurers; businesses have already been paid by insurer.
Complaints or questions about claims should be submitted at the Coldwater Canyon Break Claim Center (213) 367-4600. The Claim Center may also be emailed at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Paul Michael Neuman the Director of Communications for Paul Koretz’s (CD5) office made this comment about the claims process: “We understand the DWP has to follow certain rules, regulations, laws, procedures — they have to evaluate and monitor their use of public funds. I’m sure that individuals who work for DWP are sympathetic to the victims of the flooding. But they [the victims] were understandably frightened, exhausted, anxious, confused. Here in [Paul Koretz’s] office there’s also a sense that [the DWP as an institution] is showing a lack of compassion, of insight into what people are feeling and what they deserve. We think [they] should have a sense of priority and urgency. We don’t want to be dealing with staff who seem content to see nothing happen. There’s been a process [to deal with the aftermath of the flood] but it hasn’t worked successfully. You’re talking here about people’s faith in government, and it’s a matter of grave and significant concern to us.”
It appears the struggle to do so will continue.
(Christopher Davidson, a Studio City resident, originally published this article in the Studio City-Sherman Oaks-Encino News)
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Last Updated on Thursday, 11 March 2010 03:47 |
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