After the Deluge Comes the Damage

Plumbers, Insurance Adjusters Inundated With Calls About Area Flooding

Some plumbers quit booking appointments, forcing people to wait to get on waiting lists. Insurance adjusters, too, were slammed, as were the plumbing sections of Home Depot and Lowe's stores, where customers snapped up equipment to repair water damage.

And a company that cleans flooded basements in Washington's Maryland suburbs called in reinforcements from New England after finding its crews busier than they were after Hurricane Isabel.

Across the region yesterday, as skies turned a brilliant blue, residents surveyed their property and turned to the ugly work of cleaning flood damage caused by a storm that dumped as much as seven inches of rain Sunday and Monday.

"If you ever wondered whether your basement leaked or your roof leaked, this was the weekend to find out," said Ashton McCullers, a foreman at Red Door Construction in the District, whose crew has been replacing burned-out sump pumps, patching leaky roofs and fixing buckling retaining walls.

Jon Stroup, owner of a Servpro franchise cleanup company that operates in Charles and parts of Prince George's counties, said his waiting list was about 275 by the end of yesterday, and employees were telling callers they weren't sure when they could get to them.

"The phones are ringing off the hook," said Stroup, who was hoping to boost cleaning capacity when as many as five crews arrived from Massachusetts.

Plumbers and flood-repair companies cited two major problems: Broken sump pumps, which are supposed to expel water that collects in basements, and clogged "areaway" drains, which often are at the base of outdoor steps leading to basements. The drains can get clogged with leaves, dirt and branches, causing water to back up and seep under basement doors.

This week's rainfall was compounded by an earlier storm that left two to four inches of rain in the region on Thursday night and early Friday, saturating the ground and raising river and stream levels. "Everything was ready for flood conditions," said Brian LaSorsa, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sterling.

In Upper Marlboro, longtime residents of a flood-prone area near Route 202 and Marlboro Pike couldn't recall such flooding. "I have never seen water so high, and I have been here all of my life," said Sharon Wedge, whose basement was ceiling-high with water.

Wedge, 51, said she remained in her house as the water crested. At one point, she said, she looked out the window and saw water surrounding the house. "We were upstairs praying that we didn't have to leave the house because we couldn't get out," she said.

At S.M. Chapman, an appliance shop in Upper Marlboro, owner Spike Chapman and others had to run down products, including ovens and refrigerators, that the waters carried as far as several hundred yards away. Chapman also waded waist deep into the water to retrieve a large metal shipping container, filled with appliances and appliance parts, that had floated off his property.

"I have been in this business for 51 years, and nothing like this has ever happened," he said.