RICHMOND, Va. — Alida Rogers thinks the regional water outage that caused thousands to lose clean running water for days may have messed up her plumbing system.
The problems started a few days after water returned to her home, located just south of the James River.
"I was in my room, and my mom came in freaking out, and she said, you have to come and see this," Rogers said. "The clothes were almost finished washing, and she came in, and the half shower completely filled up with black water."
Her toilet also started leaking out of the sides.
"I've been here since 1996," Rogers said. "I've never known anything like this."
Rogers has a system connected to her pipes that alerts her about low water pressure, overuse of water, and other things.
"I'm thinking if there's a leak, if a pipe burst, then I'm going to get an alert on my system saying, okay, you have a pipe burst. It's going to automatically shut all the water off. We didn't receive any of that," Rogers said. "I never got the alert, so I knew it wasn't something within the shut-off valve. I knew it had to be something else."
When CBS 6 visited Rogers' home, a toilet flush would cause additional leaking, as well as cause the kitchen sink to gurgle for at least a minute straight.
Rogers eventually called a plumber who tried to fix the issue but was told they couldn't find a release valve necessary to do so. She was also told the plumbing company had to get in touch with the city to mark where a release valve could be, either on or near her property, which would delay work for a few more days.
She was also told she wouldn't have properly working toilets for about another week.
"Yeah, this makes me nervous," Rogers said. "There's no one coming out here and looking at the meters, so that's a big concern of mine also."
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CBS 6 could not independently confirm that the problem was caused by the outage, but reached out to Richmond's Department of Public Utilities and city communications staff to ask if the city was investigating similar cases and could provide advice.
We also reached out to the plumbing company that worked on Rogers' system.
We have not heard back from either at this time.
Rogers said she reached out to the DPU when the issue started, but as of Thursday afternoon, had not heard back from a representative.
She told CBS 6 she's worried about the cost of the work adding up on top of the city bills she'll have to pay, including the one for her water use.
"It's just very frustrating," Rogers said, claiming the city-wide extension on bill due dates was not enough. "This is not something that's on us. This is something that's on the city."
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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