100 Year Rains Damage

126 Apartments

Damages

Identified by The Weather Channel as “The wettest day on record in Phoenix flooded freeways during the Monday morning commute.” caused heavy water damage to 126 apartment units in 26 different 3 story buildings and the 2 story Clubhouse/Leasing Office.  This project was located in the East Valley where the highest amount of rainfall was reported. We deployed crews for immediate response to provide emergency mitigation services. This Apartment Community was a recent acquisition & roof replacement was contracted for but not yet scheduled. 

Challenges/Creative Solutions

The apartment was operating at near full capacity so relocating residents was not an option which meant we had to perform our services in occupied units interacting with and coordinating with all of these residents. Originally called in as 96 damaged units, as new damage was discovered, that count grew to 126 total units before the week was over.

Given the fact that this was the most rain ever recorded in the valley, drying equipment was already heavily utilized. We had to bring in 2 – semi-trucks of rental equipment secured from other states. We employed the security from a security company to guard the equipment until we could create a temporary on-site yard utilizing space in the very back of the parking lot. Being a large property with 27 damaged buildings meant that just delivery & setting up the equipment was quite a challenge. 

Demolition was required in most of the units so hazardous materials testing had to be expedited. Microbial growth was present in many of the units requiring us to remediate them which hindered our progress.

Trying to address the most severe damage first and coordinating access with so many units spread across a large property while minimizing disruption to community, staff and residents required tremendous organization. To complicate matters more, the property in an effort to reduce liability wouldn’t allow anyone to go into a residence alone so we had to utilize the “buddy system” which doubled our manpower requirements for 1 person jobs.

Results

All of the units were successfully dried while minimizing the amount of demolition required. The Club House/Leasing office remained open during the entire operation. The impact to the residents, strain on the staff and disruption to the community while unavoidable was kept to a minimum.