On July 30, 2016, I was out of town. At 9:30pm my cell phone started ringing.

The first call was from my friend Michelle, an Ellicott City resident, she had bad news.

“Something went terribly wrong in Ellicott City, there was a flash flood. Two were dead.” She could not get down to see the buildings, but she was sure that there were big issues with flooding and I should get home soon.

She shared a Snapchat movie by a neighborhood kid (please excuse the bad language) of a raging river running in the sidewalk across the 8200 block of Main Street and a car, nose first into the foundation of the church.

Within minutes of finishing my conversation with Michelle, I heard from the late John Pacylowski, (owner of Precious Gifts) my friend, who also owned property on the 8200 Block of Main Street. He insisted I get to Ellicott City as soon as I could.

As soon as our plane landed the very next day, we headed to Ellicott City.

What I found most odd was the condition of the middle of town. It was as if a hole had opened up and swallowed the street that spanned a fair amount of the 8200 block of Main Street where my buildings reside.

This extreme damage was in the middle of town, at a much higher elevation than the notorious flood-zone of Ellicott City defined on flood maps created in the 1970s after Hurricane Agnes.

I kept asking why there was a big hole in the middle of the street. 

To begin to understand the cause and nature of the damage and destruction, we retained insurance adjusters, engineers and geotechnical companies all to help us figure out what happened in Ellicott City that night on July 30, 2016. We paid for a study from an engineering firm to define the source of the damage.

After much research and study that took one year by a geotechnical and engineering company, it was affirmed that there was a water main break in front of the Burgess Building. .

Video  taken  during  and  immediately  after  the  flood depicts the broken water-main  (Start at  2:32  (WARNING: contains explicit language))

It is apparent from the google earth photo below that repair had been attempted at some point prior to the flood, as several patches were sinking. 

We contacted Howard County DPZ and asked for repair records for the water-main on the 8200 block of Main Street.

They did not cooperate.

There are laws for that.