If it flooded before....

why would you put 'valuables' back there in the same place?

Homeowners cleaning up after sewage line backs into basement

'CENTENNIAL – Randy and Cindy Hass had just finished refinishing their basement. Now, they have to start over.

The Hasses, who live at 21295 E. Powers Ave., say the city's sewage line backed up Sunday and flooded their basements and the basements of two of their neighbors.

The couple took home video of the damage. By their estimates, there was about a foot of raw sewage on the floor.

A cleaning crew spent Monday vacuuming and tearing up the floor, while the Hasses worked to dry out their pictures.

Cindy Hass said sewage also backed up into their basement six years ago.

"It happened almost six years ago to the day and my husband had just refinished this. We had just finished the basement the way we wanted it and he did it all himself and it was all his work to nothing," Cindy Hass said.

Julie Mercado and her family moved into a neighboring house three years ago.

"Yesterday when I walked into my house, I could smell it. It almost made me want to throw up," Mercado said. "The carpets were just soaked. You could step on it and your shoes filled with water."

Now that the estimated four inches of sewage has been removed from her basement, what is left of her walls is being replaced. Mercado says she cannot put a price tag on everything she lost.

"All my kids' artwork and little poems and stuff that they wrote. Little things like that is all gone," Mercado said.

Also, because she walked through the sewage to try to retrieve her possessions, she is now getting hepatitis shots.

"It just looked like water. You don't realize you're standing in raw sewage," Mercado said.'