JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Nearly a year after a JEA meter replacement led to a flood of problems inside a Jacksonville woman\u2019s home, she still can\u2019t live there and is running out of money to fix it.<\/p>\n
Theresa Graham says she\u2019s stuck in the middle of bureaucracy and red tape.<\/p>\n
Graham says she\u2019s homeless, working up to 14 hours a day to keep paying for a house she still can\u2019t live in.<\/p>\n
Right now, the biggest roadblock is who pays to finish the repairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was mold in there,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
It all started after last September\u2019s house flood.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe water was pouring out, we started pulling buckets, towels, the water was flooding from the second floor to the first floor. It came through the walls,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Nearly a year later, the water is gone.<\/p>\n
But her problems haven\u2019t evaporated.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I have a claim with the city of Jacksonville,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Graham says she feels like she\u2019s drowning in bills and uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in a hotel. I\u2019m back in Florida this week. Because I can\u2019t stay here. There\u2019s no kitchen. There\u2019s no bathrooms,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Everywhere you look, there\u2019s more damage. Even the plastic covering on the bathroom floor now almost looks like a skylight. Except this is anything but a view she asked for.<\/p>\n
Graham says it all started after JEA replaced her water meter, without warning, last September.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came in the house, the ceilings were falling,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Graham claims she was later told by a JEA manager the meter installation was the cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe manager (of JEA) came to my house and checked the meter and confirmed it. Said it\u2019s our fault. We didn\u2019t backflow properly,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Now she feels she\u2019s caught in the middle with the city, JEA and her insurance company, all passing responsibility.<\/p>\n
According to her, Frontline, her insurance company, told Graham it was no longer paying for additional housing because it was taking too long, she said.<\/p>\n
Graham said she then talked to JEA and the city of Jacksonville about getting housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Graham said they told her.<\/p>\n
When Action News Jax asked JEA for a status update, the utility said the claim is active with the City of Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
JEA said general liability claims against the utility are reviewed and administered by the City of Jacksonville\u2019s Risk Management Division, not JEA.<\/p>\n
When Action News Jax followed up with the city and asked if it takes responsibility and what\u2019s holding things up, a spokesperson said, \u201cWe await a reply from the homeowner\u2019s insurance carrier.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city also said the claim is active and that it does not comment on liability and damages on active claims.<\/p>\n
Action News Jax reached out to Frontline as well but did not hear back.<\/p>\n
Graham says it\u2019ll cost $114,000 more dollars to rebuild.<\/p>\n
And she\u2019d like to do that.<\/p>\n
After all, she\u2019s still paying a monthly $2,400 mortgage on a house she cannot live in.<\/p>\n
To support Theresa Graham\u2019s recovery from the home flood, click here<\/a> to donate. <\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Nearly a year after a JEA meter replacement led to a flood of problems inside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[14189,9286,28,153921,153920,969,1130,116,118,117,501,634,115,153919,9285,153918],"class_list":["post-384103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action","tag-ben","tag-florida","tag-frontline","tag-graham","tag-jack","tag-jackson","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jea","tag-local","tag-news","tag-teresa_graham","tag-yona","tag-yona_gavvido"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}