Several Rowlett businesses expect to be closed for months after sewer main break
Several Rowlett businesses expect to close their doors for months after two sewer main breaks flooded their buildings. A restoration company said a secondary break happened while crews fixed the main break. It also affected homes in the area.
Restoration crews expect to be at Primrose School of Rowlett for two weeks. They're cleaning up the messy situation that two sewer main breaks left behind.
City of Rowlett crews scrambled to repair two broken sewer mains Friday along Liberty Grove Road. Zeus Restoration mitigation supervisor Shawn Hudson found himself in the middle of a very stinky situation at the school.
"It's pretty bad," Hudson said. "It's full structure, wall to wall, every single wall, and every flooring. The exterior wall is all affected. It ran for probably 6 to 7 hours non-stop."
Pictures sent exclusively to CBS News Texas from Zeus Restoration show the effects of inches of raw sewage coming from all the plumbing. Some of the pictures show children's backpacks covered with a brown liquid.
"It's sewage water. In our industry, we call it category three. It contains viruses, parasites. Anything that goes down a toilet or a sink was coming up in this facility," Hudson said.
Marilyn Aragon, the franchise owner of the Primrose School of Rowlett, released the following statement to CB News Texas:
"Immediately upon the incident occurring, we acted according to our Safe School Plan and safely evacuated everyone in the building.
We have remained in close contact with our school's families throughout this situation. We are thankful to nearby Primrose schools for stepping in to provide interim care for our children during this temporary closure.
The safety and well-being of our children, families and staff is our highest priority. We are fully cooperating with state agencies and working to restore our school as quickly as possible so we can continue to provide high-quality early education and care to the families we serve."
This isn't the only business affected. A manager at BeeHive Homes of Rowlett said they're finding temporary homes for almost two dozen nursing home residents and jobs for the employees. They expect to be closed for five to six months for repairs.
"There's a community up the street, the WaterView community," Hudson said. "It's thousands of homes, and all their sewage actually comes down this road and branches off of several different lines here. That's what caused thousands of gallons last night coming out."
The damage estimate for the daycare is expected to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Texas Tort Claims Act can limit whether a municipality is liable for damages.
"On the rebuild side, putting everything back in, that's going to take several months, and that's depending on her insurance carrier for one and then if the city would take responsibility or not," Hudson said.
The City of Rowlett reports that crews restored flow, so people can use their water again.
