MOYOCK, N.C. — A Navy widow is sharing her story exclusively with 13News Now after her home in Moyock, North Carolina flooded with sewage last July.
Brandi Foti says she’s paid $90,000 to deal with damage and make repairs, and this week, she learned her insurance claim through the utility company was denied.
She lives in the Eagle Creek neighborhood, which has dealt with sewage issues for years. In 2020, hundreds of people in the neighborhood had raw sewage flooding their homes and yards for more than 11 days. Now Foti is demanding answers.
Her home looks like it’s been freshly remodeled. It has new countertops, flooring and cupboards.
“Everything is new,” she said. "They had to replace the whole kitchen.”
However, she didn’t ask for the home facelift. In fact, she just finished a different renovation she started while grieving her husband, Chief Petty Officer Adam Foti. He died in October, 2020 when a forklift at Naval Station Norfolk struck and killed him.
“We lost some of his stuff,” Foti said, saying after the flood, “I sat here and cried most days. I lost a lot of stuff that you don’t realize you have, in closets and stuff like that.”
Last July, Foti says she and her two kids woke up to raw sewage covering their home’s entire ground floor.
“I called my mother saying ‘I think I need paper towels,' she said, 'no you need more than that,’” Foti laughed.
However, the incident and aftermath has been no laughing matter. According to Foti, her personal insurance covered $5,000 in damages. She adds she was referred to a different insurance provider through the utility company to try to get coverage for the rest.
“I am ‘savings-d’ out at this point,” Foti told 13News Now. “[Remediation] had to dump everything, there were bags from ceiling to floor because of the spores from the sewage in the house. We had to leave for two months.”
An inspection report by an independent plumbing company Foti hired states her personal plumbing line was clear. In fact, Foti says she called the a plumber to her house the week prior because her toilet was gurgling.
“That’s always a sign in this neighborhood that there’s a septic issue.” She says the plumber didn’t find any problems with her personal system.
Foti alleges when the company that manages the sewage system equipment arrived, they told her a valve in the sewage pit stopped working. “[The operator] replaced it within five minutes, and I haven’t had a problem since.”
Insurance documentation Foti provided to 13News Now states the operator said a sensor valve failed, “thus causing the controller to stop working.” However, Foti’s claim was rejected, with the insurance statement going onto say, “the time frame it took from part failure to part replacement would not have been long enough for a sewage backup.”
Foti contests this argument, saying, “it backed up all night, that was 8-10 hours. So it was already completely backed up into my house, there was nothing left in the pit.”
Foti is still working to resolve the issue, saying she hopes to retain an attorney to help her through the process. She said the neighborhood deserves better.
“I’m stepping up for everyone in this neighborhood because this is ridiculous. It is not fair. These people have been through a lot. I’ve been through a lot, and they keep sweeping it under the rug like it’s nothing."
13News Now reached out to the utility and insurance companies for comment and did not hear back.