Pipe bursts at San Francisco apartment building 33 Tehama leaving residents questioning when they’ll be able to return home

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Residents of a San Francisco building that flooded on Friday are still wondering when they can return home.

UPDATE: More than 600 residents of SF luxury condo displaced by flood; some left without a hotel

At 33 Tehama on Friday afternoon, water began pouring into the apartments.

Residents say they were told to evacuate at the time, but little did they know they would not be allowed back inside. They say they didn’t take enough stuff with them.

“A change of clothes, some dog food and our dog. We had to go down 20 floors carrying only what we could so we didn’t have much at all,” Stephanie Sun Woo said.

RELATED: A woman stuck in an SF elevator for 1 hour discovers an outdated safety inspection

Residents said management at Tehama moved them to paid hotel rooms on Friday. But Monday morning brought a new set of problems. The hotel reception staff informed them that the rooms will only be paid for until 11:00 on Monday.

“I have nowhere to go after 11am today. I don’t know where I’m going to work, I don’t know where I’m going to put my things or where I’m going to sleep tonight,” Sun Woo said Monday outside her hotel building.
Other residents confirmed her story.

“At the moment we are waiting to hear from Tehama where we are staying tonight. The hotel told us to check out today and I haven’t heard anything. So a lot of us just want to know where we’re sleeping tonight,” Tyler Patterson said Monday.

VIDEO: Teachers rescue residents from a burning building in SF’s Western Addition

He says this is his second time being evicted from the building due to water damage.

“Both times the building was unresponsive and uncommunicative,” Patterson said.

His lease expires in July and he has no plans to extend it.

Matt Dorsey, the supervisor representing the neighborhood, says he and his staff are working with residents to help them and figure out what’s going to happen next. He says firefighters told him the cause of the flooding was a 6-inch pipe that burst, flooding all 35 floors of the building.

RELATED: SF considers taxing vacant homes to help with housing crisis; New report shows 40,000 empty units

ABC7 reached out to property management, Willowick Residential, who released the following statement:

A water inrush that began around 2:00 p.m. on Friday, June 3 at 33 Tehama caused flooding in parts of the building and a mandatory evacuation.

We are working diligently to make repairs and restore security systems and utilities. We are conducting an extensive investigation to determine the cause of the water leak on the property.

The safety and well-being of our residents is our top priority, so we made hotel accommodation available to our tenants immediately after the building closed. We continue to work with our residents to address their needs and provide access to their units on an appointment basis as the building remains closed while we assess the damage.

We currently have no timeframe for reopening. We will provide more information as it becomes available.

We thank the San Francisco Fire Department for their work in solving the problem and for assisting during the evacuation.

We are grateful for the patience and understanding of our residents in this very difficult and disruptive situation. We truly apologize for the inconvenience and are working 24/7 to accommodate your needs.

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

Copyright © 2022 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.

You might also like

Comments are closed.