Flooding at 33 Tehama leaves residents in limbo

(KRON) — It’s been more than two weeks since water flooded a San Francisco high-rise apartment building displacing hundreds of people.

Residents at 33 Tehama are still left in limbo and not allowed to return to their homes. Austin Caldwell was forced out of his home, along with at least 500 other residents at 33 Tehama in San Francisco, and not much has changed since.

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Caldwell says he and his partner have been bouncing around hotel rooms since June 3. Since then, Hines, the real estate development and management firm, says they determined the cause as a water main failure on the 35th floor, which serviced the fire sprinkler system. They say it led to 20,000 gallons of water cascading down the building. As they restore the building, Hines says they’ve booked hotel rooms for residents and will reimburse for added expenses like food.

 “They keep promising reimbursement for food and what not and you know a promise is just words until it’s action, and it’s become an enormous financial burden at this point,” Caldwell says. 

He also says he and other residents have reached out to city leaders but haven’t seen any action to solve the problem, “it’s truly unfair that they’re going to be the ones to hold Hines accountable for this and they should be working for us as citizens of San Francisco and they’re not. It’s been almost radio silence other than what’s been responded to on Twitter,” Caldwell tells KRON4. 

Residents were originally told they’d be able to move back in by mid June, but that date has since been pushed back to July 1 at the earliest.