Couple claim reconstruction project caused flooded basement, but county committee denies claim

Sept. 18--When Brandon and Desiree Adkins bought their first house just southeast of Eau Claire in January 2015, it was a dream come true.

Their excitement only grew the following summer when Eau Claire County reconstructed the portion of Deerfield Road that passes in front of their hillside property. With a new house, complete with a basement office where Brandon could meet with clients, and a smooth, new road, life was good.

Then came the spring thaw this year, when their version of the American dream suddenly was doused by a deluge of water from underground. The water came up through every seam and crack in the foundation.

The only logical conclusion, Brandon said, is the flooding was caused by the county's construction project, which raised the roadway several feet, widened it and eliminated the ditch between the road and the Adkins' house at 5260 Deerfield Road.

As a result, the family filed a claim against the county seeking $66,800 in compensation for damages and preventive steps to ensure the flooding doesn't recur. The amount was calculated by Eau Claire engineer David Merrill after studying the property and determining the road project raised the water table at the house.

But the county's liability carrier, Wisconsin Municipal Mutual Insurance Co., determined the county has no liability for the claim and recommended Sept. 6 that the county reject it. The representative who handled the claim didn't return a call seeking an explanation for the denial.

The county Finance and Budget Committee voted 3-1 on Sept. 8 to recommend the County Board disallow the claim at its meeting this Tuesday after county attorney Keith Zehms told the panel about the insurance company's ruling that the damages claimed lacked support. Zehms advised committee members to "not serve as a jury" and said denying the claim would allow the couple to take the case to court.

Lawsuit possible

"I'm not the suing type," Brandon said. "I don't like lawsuits, and I don't want my name attached to one, but I just think the county should take responsibility for the damage they caused."

Zehms confirmed in a fact sheet for county supervisors that a claimant may initiate a lawsuit only after the county has rejected a claim and that claims usually are disallowed when there are significant issues of liability or damages.

"It is part of the process the county goes through with its insurance carrier for handling claims," said County Administrator Kathryn Schauf, adding that she couldn't comment on the grounds for disallowing the claim.

Schauf did, however, say disallowing the claim could help the process move faster and wouldn't stop ongoing negotiations between the insurer and the claimant about a possible resolution.

Still, that didn't sit right with Nick Smiar, the lone dissenting supervisor on the Finance and Budget Committee.

"I'm not an expert in hydrology or drainage or anything like that, but it seems to me that if the county came along and raised the road 4 feet and filled in the ditch, the water that used to flow over that road and into the ditch is now flowing into that property, which it didn't do before," Smiar said. "It seems to me that everyone who has looked at it has reached that logical conclusion."

Smiar said his symbolic vote was intended to show he doesn't like the practice of automatically rejecting claims and forcing people to sue.

"In my opinion, common sense would say the county did something to cause damage to this person's property and it would be only right for the county to acknowledge that, but unfortunately it doesn't work that way," Smiar said,

Shocking discovery

For the Adkins family, the soggy nightmare began late on the afternoon of April 1 when, shortly after completing a meeting with a client in his home office, Brandon noticed a wet spot on the carpet in their son's downstairs bedroom after their black Lab, Remington, stood up. Surprised, Brandon investigated and quickly discovered the carpet in the room was squishy with water.

Within hours, Brandon said, the entire floor of the finished walk-out basement was soaked and the family was frantically pulling out carpet and padding and using a wet-dry vacuum to remove unwanted water. The water, which he estimated poured in at a rate of 60 gallons per hour, continued flowing into the basement for about a week. It peaked at about two inches deep, thanks to a drain in the laundry room floor.

"It was an awful feeling watching it come in," Brandon said. "It was like a sinking ship, but there was no hole you could plug."

At the same time, water was bubbling up in a large portion of the backyard, Desiree recalled.

More than five months later -- and after one more flooding incident on June 15 -- the basement is dry, but the damage has been done. With the county failing to take steps to compensate the family or fix the underlying issues, the Adkinses are left to pick up the pieces. Among the negative impacts:

--All of the trim around the basement doors is warped and will need to be replaced.

--The exposed, now-blackened tack strips that once held carpet have caused multiple injuries when family members, including the couple's 7- and 3-year-old daughters, have gone downstairs to take showers.

--The couple's 11-year-old son, Collin, has been forced to sleep in the living room after having breathing troubles as a result of the mold growing in his former bedroom. His bed is now wedged between the front wall and the dining room table, and he keeps his clothes in the garage.

--Brandon had to rent office space for his financial planning business because his former home office remains unusable. "I can't really meet with people in a room full of mold and no carpet," he said.

--The family essentially has no lawn left near their house after Brandon recently rented an excavator to dig a trench around the house, filled the trench with drain tile and rock and installed a skirt drain -- the cheapest remedial option recommended in the engineer's report.

Help wanted soon

In a cruel twist, Desiree noted that the family's previous rental home had water seep into the basement during spring thaw and heavy rain, so avoiding that annoyance was a high priority during their latest housing search.

"We talked to the previous homeowners, and they said there had been no flooding in 40-plus years, so we thought we were all set," Desiree said as she stood on the dirt next to her house where a lush, green lawn had been growing before the trench project.

When contacted by the Leader-Telegram, the previous homeowner, who asked not to be identified, confirmed the house never had groundwater in the basement from the spring thaw during his 40 years of ownership and only once had a little water come in the basement windows after a since-fixed problem developed with the gutters.

The previous homeowner also pointed out to the Adkins family the history of a natural spring that would routinely blow a hole in the blacktop in the middle of Deerfield Road next to the house, spurting water 4 or 5 inches out of the ground.

"Essentially, it looks like they put a cork in it and rerouted it into our basement," Brandon said.

Eau Claire County Highway Commissioner Jon Johnson acknowledged the presence of the spring and said it occasionally had caused hazardous driving conditions when the water froze on the pavement. Engineers attempted to control the spring's water flow as part of the state Department of Transportation-managed upgrade of the road, also known as Highway II, he said.

"Unfortunately, there's a situation here that popped up, and we're trying to work through it as civilly as possible," Johnson said.

Five-and-a-half months after the flooding, the Adkinses are frustrated they haven't received any compensation and no action has been taken to fix a problem they see as time-sensitive.

"If we're going to do anything, it needs to be done, sooner rather than later because the ground is going to freeze again soon, and if nothing is done we could have the same thing all over again next spring," Desiree said.

The couple complained they have received almost no communication about the county's intentions, other than hearing about the Finance and Budget Committee recommending their claim be denied. They have consulted with attorneys and are considering their options.

"In the meantime, half of our house is still unusable," said Brandon, who estimated the couple already have devoted hundreds of hours to recovering from the flooding.

"All we want is to be made whole," Brandon said.

Contact: 715-833-9209, [email protected], @ealscoop on Twitter

Reporter Andrew Dowd contributed to this story.

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