By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
AN Endeavour Hills family, whose house was flooded a week after warning Casey Council of a blocked easement stormwater drain, has been denied compensation.
Tek Yi and partner Fiona Wong said they got “the cold shoulder” from the council after first reporting water streaming downhill from under their Temby Close backyard fence on 21 April.
An inspection by water authority South East Water the next day concluded “urgent action” was needed to fix a blocked stormwater street drain. Despite further rains forecast and the family calling and emailing the council about a dozen times, Ms Wong said the council’s staff gave either no response or a “we’ll get onto it” reply for the next three weeks.
“They didn’t do anything,” Ms Wong said.
“They treated it as a joke.
“They take your rates, then when things happen, they just don’t care.”
In the meantime, on 30 April, the family awoke to find floodwater, mud and other debris in their lounge room and son Winston’s bedroom. The yard was flooded a third time on 4 May.
The family’s damage and clean-up claim of $2925 for ruined carpets, a breached back fence and a muddied hot water service was denied by the council.
Winston said if the council had at least “communicated properly”, the family could have prevented their house from flooding.
“(My mother) feels that the response they finally gave – essentially saying it wasn’t their fault and not really their responsibility to maintain unblocked drains – was unsatisfactory and lacked compassion.
“It is not a great deal of money to the council’s annual budget, but it is an unnecessary cost that we have had to pay.”
Since 2010 that marked a major flooding, the council had not paid out any flood claims.
Casey roads and construction manager Wayne Mack said the council’s drainage maintenance team had to prioritise 30 drainage-related inquiries due to heavy rain between 22-30 April.
The drainage crew subsequently found large pieces of concrete partially blocking an easement pipeline behind the family’s property and completed repairs on 16 May, he said.
“As (the) council has approximately 1500 kilometres of easement pipeline on private property, it is not possible to proactively inspect these pipelines.
“There is no insurance policy that responds to these circumstances, nor is there any automatic entitlement to receive compensation from the council.”
Tristen Spragg, of the council’s insurer National Claims Solutions, wrote to the family in July, denying liability and inviting them to provide “expert evidence” that the council’s drains were sub-standard.
Otherwise the family could pay the first $1330 of a no-liability claim, Mr Spragg wrote.
