Mandan city commissioners want to lend a helping hand to those residents along Collins Avenue affected by sanitary sewer back-up on May 26. But on the advice of adjustor Duane Heinrich, decided to let the insurance companies work out the situation.

At Tuesday's commission meeting, city engineer Tom Little provided an update on what has occurred since the unfortunate series of events led to sewer back-up in at least 14 homes adjacent the Collins reconstruction project.

Little has been asking those that were impacted to contact the insurance company for Strata Construction, the primary contractor on the project. He has also encouraged residents to hire a professional cleaning company to clean up any of the back-up and sludge which filled their basements.

Mayor Ken LaMont said he had toured three or four of the homes, describing the residents as stressed with what is not a pleasant situation.

Commissioner Tim Helbling said he doesn't feel any of the people should be paying for the expenses incurred out of their own pockets. He suggested the city provide some sort of fund for clean up so no one had to take out a loan for a problem that wasn't of their making.

Homeowner insurance should protect the residents, city attorney Malcolm Brown said.

But Heinrich, principle with Heinrich and Company Adjusters, said that regular homeowner insurance doesn't cover sewer back-up, unless there is a special endorsement on the policy for that situation. In this case, only one of the 14 homes, all with coverage, had an endorsement.

Heinrich said his company had been asked by the contractor's insurer to investigate the claim. Fourteen homeowners had been identified, and all but one had allowed adjusters into their homes for inspections.

"In talking with the adjusters, and this is most of them, Ihaven't heard of anyone where a cleaning company hasn't been involved," Heinrich said.

Heinrich said that, should the city attempt to get involved in providing money, it could further complicate the matter and slow down the entire process.

"If you're talking about stepping up to pay damages, I need to warn you, that could easily reach $250,000," Heinrich said. "In the reports I've received, the homeowners have all been very understanding based on the circumstances. Hopefully, we can work with them and determine the amount of loss."

All the homeowners have been cooperative and are being asked to do an inventory. This will include bills from the cleaning contractors, which the insurance companies will have to go through and make sure are accurate, with charges made appropriately.

"We can't make promises we can't keep, and we won't tell them we'll pay them unless we're going to pay them," Heinrich said. "Unfortunately, bad things happen. We're not going to tell them we'll pay them. What we're saying is we'll make those decisions as soon as we can and we'll let everyone know."

Heinrich guessed it will take about 30 days to make a determination who is at fault and what the residents can expect.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)