Busted pipes, ruined floors: grim reminder of 2015 cold
From Feb. 16 through Feb. 22, the low temperature for the week in eastern Sussex County dipped to minus four degrees. That dragged the weekly average down to 18.9 degrees. The typical average for that week, according to AccuWeather statistics, is 38 degrees.
For many of us, those low temperatures along with images of a frozen Delaware Bay are quickly becoming distant memories. But for many more, dealing with the aftermath of water damage from busted pipes is keeping those memories fresh.
Chris Kneipp, operations manager for ServPro of Sussex County, a national franchise dealing with fire and water damage, said the number of claims they responded to from that mid-February cold snap far eclipsed the number of claims from Hurricane Sandy in 2012. “We responded to 130 claims in the aftermath of Sandy,” said Kneipp. “This year’s claims have already reached 230.”
Kneipp said most of those claims came during a four-week span starting in mid-February. “I remember our first call came in on Feb. 16. This is by far the most I have ever seen in my seven and a half years with the company.”
He said the closer to the water, the worse the problems were. “The cold really did a number on those places. I think the worst I saw was a house in Bethany Beach flooded with at least 230,000 gallons of water. Most of the damage we’ve seen has been in seasonal houses. At least 75 percent of them, and 95 percent of those cases have been covered by insurance. What amazes me is that instead of fixing the problem - such as exposed pipes or improper winterization - some people will just keep calling us back.”
Mike Fleming, with Anderson Carpet, said he has been backed up replacing flooring and carpets ruined by water damage. “The insurance adjusters have been telling me that Lewes and Rehoboth were hit the hardest,” said Fleming. “There’s more wind along the coast, and there was plenty of it during those cold days. People have areas where there are pipes and they’re insulated and they’ve been no problem for 30 years. But then along comes a wind blowing from a weird direction, it gets through a crack and a pipe freezes and bursts. Then when it thaws, here comes the water. The ones in the attic are the worst because you know what direction water goes.”
Fleming said he saw one house in Rehoboth Beach where water had been running in the house for months - since January. “In a lot of cases drywall is having to be cut out so the house can be dried. Right down to the studs. Flooring being totally removed. It has to be dried out so mold doesn’t take over.”
John Lupinetti, who does marketing for ServPro, said claims are still coming in. “People are starting to open their homes. They thought they were winterized, but some are still finding problems. When they turn their water back on, it starts flowing out of leaks and we get called.”
George Bunting, a longtime insurance broker along the coast, noted that a lot of second homes aren’t built to take cold weather like we had this year. “I had people telling me they were calling ServPro and being told they were 45th on the list. Any plumber that could fix a broken pipe was working. And the first thing they were doing was cutting off the water.”
Bunting said one of the most common frozen water lines is one of the smallest. “It’s that little line that serves people’s icemakers on their refrigerators. It can freeze and break and start flowing water. It’s amazing how much water can come out of that little line over the course of several days.”
Fleming said some of the problems he has seen were preventable - “They should have turned their water off for the winter” - and some were not. He said he’s had plenty of work in houses occupied year-round that were just plain plagued by the low temps and high winds blowing from unusual directions.
We might be southern Delaware, but that doesn’t mean we’re the tropics. A little bit of simple math telling us that the cold snap of 2015 caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage in Delaware’s Cape Region is plenty proof of that.
