During the torrential rainstorm that hit the Denver area a week ago, Jennifer Sisung’s home on South Glencoe Street turned into an isthmus, with one body of water lapping at her back door and another filling the street and at least half her front yard.
“I have T-REX flooding my backyard, and storm drains flooding out front,” said Sisung, whose house backs up to the Transportation Expansion Project near East Yale Avenue.
During three years of T-REX construction, heavy rains have flooded Sisung’s backyard at least six times, although the heavy rains missed her Thursday. On one occasion in 2003, water rose over the door sill and into the house.
The project’s insurers paid Sisung $17,000 for repairs. T-REX bought out a nearby resident’s home that also was damaged, and it was razed.
So far, T-REX has received 45 water- and flood-related claims, and payments have been made on 33 of them for a total of about $383,460, said Toni Gatzen, spokeswoman for the $1.67 billion project.
Sisung said the interior of her house was saved from another drenching last Friday only because she made a frantic plea to T-REX contractors to start pumping water from the backyard as rain fell.
T-REX is spending up to $50 million on a new drainage system for the 19- mile-long highway expansion and light-rail project, yet it’s obvious to Sisung that officials haven’t figured out the cause of the persistent flooding she’s seen.
“I’m the dam at the end of the flood plain,” she said.
“We’re very sorry that this has happened,” said Hunter Sydnor, spokeswoman for T-REX’s contractors. “We take responsibility for what is rightfully ours, and we acted quickly.”
Sisung’s backyard “definitely is the low point in that area,” Sydnor said.
Still, after touring the area between Sisung’s house and the nearby light-rail line with contractors, Sydnor said, “It’s still a little early to assess where all the water came from.”
She said contractors have yet to install a drainage ditch along the T-REX right of way that should carry rainwater into a new storm inlet near Yale and away from the Glencoe homes.
Reza Kazemian, director of operations for Denver’s Wastewater Management Department, assessed last week’s storm as a “25-year event,” with the rain gauge measuring 1.7 inches.
Sisung said all she knows is that the storm drains on the street in front of her house also couldn’t handle the torrent. Water was 3 feet deep on Glencoe.
The city hopes to upgrade the drainage system for the neighborhood, Kazemian said.
While acknowledging Sisung’s flooding problem, Sydnor said the T-REX corridor in general drained extremely well during last week’s storm.
“We had no water at ‘Lake Logan,’ or Evans or our other traditional spots,” she said, referring to past flooding at locations where Logan Street and Evans Avenue cross Interstate 25.
But that’s no consolation to Sisung.
She has given up the Xeriscape plants in her backyard, which has resembled a rice paddy on too many occasions.
She has a new plan: “I’m going to plant water lilies.”
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-820-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
