Resident seeks help from Altoona Water Authority with sewer line collapse damage

City home damaged after water authority replaced faulty pipe

An Altoona man asked the Altoona Water Authority board Thursday for help dealing with damage that occurred in July after a terra cotta sewer line running under his house collapsed, coupled with further damage that occurred when the authority replaced the collapsed line.

"We will talk about it and let you know what we come up with," board Chairman Bill Neugebauer told Stephen Shortsleeve of the 1100 block of 23rd Avenue.

Water pressure in the collapsed line from a storm disturbed the house foundation and "exploded" the basement floor, flooding the basement nearly to the ceiling and destroying the furnace and other appliances -- everything in the basement but a handful of ceramic items, Shortsleeve said.

An excellent authority crew cleaned up the mess, but when authority workers pushed a steel replacement pipe under the house from a hole in the back yard toward a connection in front, the new pipe emerged a foot too low and off to the side, leading workers to lift and shift that end with a chain hooked to a loader, possibly disturbing the ground under the house -- because immediately afterward, the front door wouldn't open without a shoulder push, the side door wouldn't close and the back door wouldn't open, Shortsleeve said.

Since then, the Shortsleeve family has been living at a relative's house; they've discovered their homeowner's insurance won't cover the damage and they've been dealing with the authority's insurance company -- without satisfactory results so far.

They've hired a structural engineer, who told them that a beam that would need to rest on exterior columns must be run through the house to support the center beam that runs from front to back in the basement, because the frame of the house is "compromised," according to Shortsleeve.

It's been 3.5 months, and it feels like the family is being "stonewalled" by the insurance company and "abandoned by this utility," Shortsleeve said.

"Our lives are upside down," he said. "I'm super frustrated."

He's "hoping not to get legal," Shortsleeve said.

His father was a colonel in the Marines, and always told his children, "if we broke something, we fixed it," he said.

"Claims have been filed and are being processed," said solicitor John Lhota, when asked what the authority intends to do about the situation.