Athens Community Council on Aging still trying to recover from floods from a year ago

For more than a year, the Athens Community Council on Aging has been struggling to recover from a deluge of muddy water that caused extensive damage to its Hoyt Street facility, forcing significant cuts to its programming.

“It’s been incredibly upsetting,” said Eve Anthony, CEO of ACCA, which provides space and services for a range of programs for older adults.

Among other things, Anthony explained, the flooding forced ACCA to rent space to continue Senior Center programming. Additionally, the expense of repairing flood damage has meant the agency cannot resolve the waiting list for its Meals on Wheels initiative..

The facility is insured, but because the damage was caused by flooding, payment was limited to $30,000, Anthony explained. That amount didn’t even cover ACCA’s drying costs, which totaled $50,000, she said.

To date, ACCA has had flood recovery expenses of $100,000.

Ongoing repair costs will significantly increase that total, according to Anthony. Furthermore, ACCA hired legal advice, an expense not included in its budget.

The fiscal challenge is made even more difficult by the fact that ACCA’s fee-for-service revenue has declined as its programming has been reduced due to the flooding. Attendance at the paid ACAC Active Learning Center dropped by 50 percent after the incident, according to Anthony.

But an even deeper frustration is that the entity believed to be responsible for the floods has offered no support. Anthony says ACCA believes the flood occurred on June 11, 2023 – a Sunday, so no one was on the premises to respond immediately – originating from work carried out by an AT&T utility relocation team.

Relying on a report submitted to the agency by his plumbing contractor, who ACCA contacted upon discovering the flooding, Anthony claims that water entered the building through the broken AT&T pipeline, which runs down from the North Central Redevelopment Project. Athens.

The construction project is a massive public-private, mixed-use housing development initiative involving the Athens Housing Authority and funding from an Athens-Clarke County sales tax program.

According to Anthony, the conduit was next to a mound of dirt, and when a severe storm hit the area, a flood of muddy water was forced into it. Unfortunately for ACCA, one open end of that conduit ends in a utility room inside the agency building, and muddy water flowed from there into much of the ACCA building, including its kitchen.

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Interaction with AT&T since the flood has been unproductive, according to Anthony. At one point, she said, the utility claimed that its visual inspection of the pipeline rupture site and the ACCA building showed that there were different types of mud at each location.

“It’s disappointing,” Anthony said, calling AT&T’s response to the flooding “a tough blow to take.”

For its part, AT&T categorically disputes the claim that it had any role in the flooding.

“What happened to the Athens Community Council on Aging is unfortunate, but based on our investigation to date, we are not responsible for it,” an AT&T spokesperson noted in an email.

Elsewhere in the corporate email, AT&T states that it investigated ACCA’s claim with the utility’s third-party insurer and determined that its work did not damage any buried utilities. Anthony, however, claims that the third-party insurance company did not do its own investigation, but rather relied on the information provided to it.

The email from AT&T states that other parties were working at the flood site during the same time that AT&T was on site.

All of these findings were shared with ACCA, according to the AT&T email.

According to Anthony, ACCA’s attorney has informed the agency that one of its options going forward is to simply publicize the incident.

As part of that, Anthony said, ACCA is asking people who are concerned about the agency’s attempts to deal with the flooding to talk to local authorities, to raise concerns about the flooding and its consequences, and notwithstanding AT&T’s position about the incident, to appeal to the dealership.

In addition to AT&T’s investigation, the damage at ACCA was visited by Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz and Athens-Clarke County Commissioner Dexter Fisher, given the local government’s involvement with the downtown redevelopment project from Athens in the north.

“This is definitely one of those situations that has a lot of layers,” Girtz said recently. “Although we (ACC) are financiers of the (North Athens Redevelopment) project, we are not the property owner or contracting agent. My understanding is that the responsibility lies with the telecommunications company whose line was the water conduit and/or the contractor.”

Girtz went on to note, “I hate the impact it has had on ACCA, which is working every day to fulfill its very important mission.”

Valdon Daniel, chairman of the Athens Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, said the authority has spoken with ACCA and is in a “wait and see” stance until whoever did the disputed work provides information about the flooding.

“We always do the right thing,” Daniel said of the Athens Housing Authority.

However, Daniel balked at the question of whether the authority would assist financially with repairs to ACCA facilities if any fault was established at the housing agency.

State Rep. Spencer Frye, D-Athens, who was called in by ACCA early in its handling of the flooding, was surprised to learn Tuesday that the problem had not been resolved.

“I’m a little disappointed,” Frye said.

Emphasizing that any of the entities involved in the issue, from government agencies to concessionaires, to contractors and subcontractors, should have insurance to cover ACCA damages. The fact that the issue has dragged on for so long “shows a problem within the system,” Frye suggested.

Anyone who would like to stay up to date with ACCA events, programming and volunteer opportunities, or who would like to donate to the agency, can go online to www.accaging.org or call (706) 549-4850.

This article originally appeared in the Augusta Chronicle: Athens Community Council on Aging Still Overcoming June 2023 Floods