Family whose Bellevue home collapsed in landslide sues city for damages

A Bellevue household who shed their dwelling when it was pushed off its basis in the course of a January landslide filed a lawsuit Wednesday towards the metropolis of Bellevue for unspecified financial damages. 

The lawsuit, submitted in King County Outstanding Court, alleges the metropolis was negligent when officers unsuccessful to alert the Surdi family about getting older h2o pipes or mitigate the chance of the pipes failing.

Owner John Surdi claimed he awoke the morning of Jan. 17 right after a neighbor called and educated him about water gushing down his driveway. Surdi stated he drove to the parking great deal of the private faculty behind his property, when moments afterwards, his household of in excess of 20 years slid off its foundation and partially collapsed with his spouse and doggy in it.

The function pressured 40 folks in the area to evacuate.

The Surdi household has argued that the city was to blame for the reason that an 8-inch-diameter part of the drinking water primary that ran at the rear of and previously mentioned their property broke, leading to the landslide.

The water pipe was built out of asbestos cement, which is “more very likely to fall short catastrophically than iron pipes,” in accordance to Bellevue’s organizing files. 

The family members submitted a $5 million assert in opposition to the city March 9. Earlier, the city mentioned it was probable a normal landslide might have prompted the pipe to break, destabilizing the floor.

The metropolis has not yet responded to the assert, spokesperson Brad Harwood reported Wednesday.

“The slide was a sophisticated incident, and it will choose additional than a few of months to decide the trigger and any probable legal responsibility,” he reported in a assertion.

Harwood mentioned the pipe that broke was not put in by the metropolis but by the proprietor of the hillside in the early 1970s. It experienced no prior background of reported leaks or breakage, he reported.

An initial investigation found there has been no catastrophic break of the pipe, according to Harwood, who reported the investigation is ongoing.

Asbestos cement was a well-known creating product in North The usa between 1940 and 1980, and makes up about 10% to 20% of h2o mains in the U.S., in accordance to estimates by the Environmental Safety Company and market teams. In Bellevue, asbestos cement would make up 40% of the city’s water procedure.