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Water Main Break Floods Bucktown Family's Apartment: 'It's Devastating'

By Alisa Hauser | February 27, 2015 4:52pm | Updated on March 2, 2015 9:05am
 A water main burst in Bucktown on Thursday, destroying a garden apartment.
Garden Apartment Ruined by Flooding from Water Main Break
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BUCKTOWN —  A family that has lived in Bucktown since 1978 will not be able to use their garden apartment in the near future due to flooding damage from a nearby water main break — but members are praising city workers for arriving promptly and quickly sending in contractors to repair and replace floors, walls and appliances.

"Any preconceptions you have about the city not helping are not true. All that they are doing for us, for my sister, is out of a storybook," said Johnny Ortiz, whose sister, Emma Rodriguez, lives in a garden apartment with her husband and their two children, age 7 and 10.

The Rodriguez's family's ruined belongings in the kitchen:

Rodriguez said she was at her job in the accounting office of a West Loop health club when a water main, just east of Armitage and Damen Avenues, burst shortly after 9 a.m. on Thursday. 

With her husband at work and her children at school on Friday, Rodrgiuez and her brother were busy sorting through the family's belongings.

"Toys, beds, furniture, blankets, it was all lost. See that dumpster our front?" Ortiz said.

Rodriguez said, "It is devastating to come home and see everything ruined, but we are moving forward and have a strong family, a supportive group of friends."

Ortiz said the water was four-feet-high after it surged into the apartment, flowing in through the neighboring PNC Bank parking lot at 1955 N. Damen Ave. and into the back of the two-story building, pouring into the garden unit's bathroom and kitchen before spreading to the living room.

"The last time that city water pipe has changed was 1933. The main can't support all the progress on the street, all the new buildings," Ortiz said.

Ortiz in his sister's living room:

Ortiz said that the city sent in HVAC contractors to install a new boiler immediately after removing the damaged boiler so the family could have heat.  Other contractors will install a new floor and dry wall and get the building up to code, Ortiz said.

Electricians in the home on Thursday:

"The workers were here right away, they were sucking the water out of the home from until 6 p.m. yesterday and the alderman brought 12 gallons of drinking water right to the door," Oritz said of Scott Waguespack, who was re-elected to his post on Tuesday.

Ortiz said he is not sure when his sister and her family can move back into the apartment. For now the family of four is living with their parents, Teresa and and Juan Ortiz, on the building's second floor.

The sibling's parents bought their two-flat in Bucktown in 1978. Rodriguez said that her family moved into the garden unit about four years ago,

"My sister and I went to Drummond [Elementary] and Von Steuben, we are longtime residents," said Ortiz, who now lives in Humboldt Park.

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