RR man speaks out after home 'a total loss' due to water main break

RIO RANCHO — As Rio Rancho resident Phillip Sedillo prepared to step into the shower of his home early one morning, he couldn’t tell if the unusual sounds outside were a storm or a sign from the heavens.

It was 4:15 a.m. Nov. 21, and Sedillo, a contractor, was getting ready to go to work. Just then, the sound he heard was “so loud and disruptive” that it “took over the entire house” on Western Hills Drive Southeast.

“I’d never heard a storm like that,” Sedillo said. “I really had to start thinking, ‘Is this something of a biblical nature?’”

But it was not a storm. It was rocks hitting the roof after flying 100 feet in the air and “a wall of water” that made it impossible for Sedillo to see outside the window.

When he opened the front door, he saw steam that resembled “a thick smoke,” which did not allow him to see the root cause of his early morning terror: a water main break.

With the help of a firefighter, Sedillo, 65, escaped his home with his ailing wife, 66, as they all wore helmets to protect themselves from falling debris.

“It wasn’t until we actually exited the house, through the garage with the firefighters, that I realized it wasn’t a storm,” Sedillo said.

All told, the break flooded Sedillo’s home with over 300,000 gallons of water, at 2,000 gallons per minute, he said, citing experts — though city officials have not determined the exact amount. The incident caused area schools to close for a day and residents to go with little to no water pressure in their homes until the following week, when the main was fully repaired.

Sedillo was able to assess the damage to his property three hours after the break, and what he saw was “unbelievable.” The home consumed up to 6 inches of water, which flowed out the garage door “like a river,” Sedillo said. A pile of firewood originally outside blew through the dog door and inside his home. A pickup truck parked in the driveway sat in a 3-foot trench made by the break.

“That’s when you start realizing the force of the water that was there, where a real strange event happened,” Sedillo said.

He grabbed a safe full of documents and business papers — but he was not able to save personal items.

“When you’re told, ‘Take what’s important,’ you have to think, initially, what’s important,” Sedillo said. “First thing, continue business. Then, you think about what do you want to wear? What do you drive? How do we get back to life? It slaps you in the face. It’s like being in an auto accident.”

The city said residents who may have experienced property or personal property damage as a result of the break could file a liability claim. Rio Rancho Deputy City Manager Peter Wells wrote in an email that city staff had left claim submission paperwork at Sedillo’s home on Nov. 24, which Sedillo confirmed he received. In addition, his insurance provider declared his case “catastrophic” and decided to cover the damage, he said.

Sedillo now lives in an RV he uses for his contracting work while his wife is staying with family. The RV is his base camp for dealing with all things related to the house. On Wednesday, his phone rang almost constantly, and he supervised a person who came to haul away damaged goods.

Ever the contractor, Sedillo plans to renovate the home from the ground up.

“I’m the one qualified to do that, so I told the insurance company,” he said. “It’s my project, so I have a personal interest, and I want to make sure it’s handled properly.”

Sedillo — who noted that even he has broken a few water mains in his line of work — said he’s “never one to fall apart” and blame others.

“People are kind of wondering, ‘How can you be so calm?’ I said, ‘If there’s no loss of life, there’s no reason to get upset,’” Sedillo said. “We’re facing losing everything we own, but ... things can be replaced.”

A GoFundMe page has been established to help Sedillo and his family at gofundme.com/f/bring-hope-to-the-sedillo-family-after-disaster.