City Should Know This Week If Its Insurance Will Cover Flood Damaged Homes From Irene

The City of Bowie and is expected to find out this week if its insurance will cover damage to Bowie homes caused by flooding from severe rain during Tropical Storms Irene and Lee.

City Manager David J. Deutsch said Monday insurance officials have told him they should be filing their report in a few days regarding results of claims filed by several homeowners against the city’s insurance.

In early September, three homes were flooded when city storm drains became backed up following days of rain during Irene and the storms that followed.  None of the homes are located within a floodplain, so the homeowners were not eligible to buy flood insurance and thus were not covered by their own insurance.

“The water had no place to go,” said Bernard Lipscomb of Sadler Lane during the City Council meeting last week. “If the drains had been cleared and cleaned of debris properly, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Lipscomb and his wife Monica Lipscomb said their home had nearly a foot of water in it, which led to the replacement of carpeting and hardwood floors. Their neighbor John Wolfe wrote the City Council that his home received $13,000 in damages.  And Diana Arnold of Heatherstone Drive reported extensive damage to her air conditioner, heater, washer and dryer.

Deutsch said the cumulative amount of rain that hit the city during one week was “unprecedented” and “overwhelmed” the city’s storm drainage system. He said that the days before Irene and in between storms, city public works employees were busily cleaning storm drains of debris. He said if that maintenance had not occurred, there may have been a roomful of flooded out residents telling their stories, instead of just a smaller number.

In other city government news:

• The city is expected next Monday to name a new deputy police chief from six finalists for the job. Deutsch said the new deputy chief, who would help oversee the city’s 51 member force, would probably start a month after that. The position, which is expected to pay from $80,000 to $105,000 annually, became vacant when Chief John Nesky moved up from deputy following the departure of Chief Katherine Perez.

• Nesky presented his yearly update to the council last week, in which he said that Bowie’s speed camera program is slowing drivers down. From the start of the year through August, 87,721 citations were issued as a result of the cameras.  The program began in May, 2010.
  
  “Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they work,” said Nesky.    

• The city’s Bowie Business Innovation Center, or business incubator, at Bowie State University is expected to open either by the end of the year or early next year, said John H. King, Bowie’s economic development director. The incubator will help “nurture” small business start-ups by offering office space at reduced rates and access to other business resources, including business experts at the university. The city is starting off with $50,000 in seed money for the project, said King.

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