When junior English major Laura Kingsbury walked out of the Walton Complex on March 28 and saw her car, she was shocked. Her beloved 1984 Volvo, which she fondly refers to as “Robin,” was partially submerged with four inches of water flooding the floorboards.
Robin was an unfortunate casualty of the 600,000-gallon deluge of water released by a mainline break at the intersection of East 15th Avenue and Agate Street.
Kingsbury was forced to crawl in through the back hatch of the car, only to find that it had died.
“I wanted to cry because I love my car so much,” she said of the fateful day.
Even now, she cannot find the words.
“(I was) just shocked. It was ridiculous,” she said. “It was unbelievable.”
Fortunately, there was hope. Kingsbury found out it would cost $530 to repair the car, which had a large amount of carpet damage. The cost also included damage done to items in the car.
Freshman Adam Cohen’s 2001 Subaru was also damaged by the flood. The four inches of water that flooded his car damaged the car’s computer and ruined the upholstery. The damage racked up a hefty $1,100 in repairs. While Cohen’s
insurance company spared him the entire cost of repairs, he was still forced to pay a $600 deductible.
Feeling the pangs of injustice, the two cash-strapped students appealed to the Eugene Water and Electric Board, the public agency that owns and manages the pipe, for compensation. Both Kingsbury and Cohen called EWEB the day after the incident, only to find Teresa Siemanowski, the management assistant of the Finance Department, was absent.
“I was on vacation,” Siemanowski said. She added that her absence did not in any way hinder the processing of the claims. However, it took both students more than a month to settle their cases.
The students’ claims were directed to Cascade Claims, a private claims company that Siemanowski said EWEB has contracted with.
“Often times (Cascade Claims) will do the field investigation,” she said. “It varies when and why we would use them.”
Cascade Claims, after performing the investigation, found EWEB not responsible for the break.
“They claim they didn’t know it was going to break,” Kingsbury said.
As per this policy, the two students were left empty-handed.
“As a public agency, we only pay for damage we are liable for,” Siemanowski added.
Cohen and Kingsbury then consulted a lawyer with ASUO Legal Services, who advised them to submit claims. According to Kingsbury, “As soon as we submitted claims, they were really nice about it.”
In their claims letters, the two mentioned their status as cash-strapped college students. Cohen also mentioned in his letter that an EWEB official had pledged to pay for damage in a television interview.
The appeal worked, and while neither received the full compensation for the damage, both received approximately half of their bill.
“It was a compromise, which is fine,” Cohen said. EWEB agreed to pay for his $600 deductible.
Kingsbury took the process a step further than Cohen and appealed once again, and EWEB agreed to pay $400 to help with repairs, more than half the damage. But she said the process of getting compensation was very frustrating.
“I just found out they’re covering $400 of it, and that was hard to get,” she said. “It’s been over a month of paperwork. It’s just been really irritating.”