INDIANAPOLIS — Walking down your driveway is supposed to be simple and safe, but at Andy Sole's north side home, it's anything but after a water main blew in front of his house leaving his driveway a mess.
Now he just wants the organization responsible to clean it up.
"Well it was a lot worse than this. Mother nature has dried things up a lot. You couldn't even walk on this," Sole said.
Nearly four weeks after water started rising from the water main under Sole's driveway, the damage it left behind is an everyday headache for his entire family, including his wife Lisa who cannot even get to the mailbox.
""Which is a problem," Sole said. "Lisa is in a chair she needs assistance to get around and get her van out. She's having to come through the grass to get to her van."
Sole said when the water main broke on July 20, he immediately called Citizens Energy Group. A crew was finally able to shut the water off, after the water spewed from the ground and flowed down the street for roughly three ours.
As dirt-filled water was unearthed, Sole, an engineer of 20 years, asked Citizens to not only re-pave his driveway but fix the recently-paved street that is now cracked and replace the dirt that was washed away underground.
"I personally wanted to go over the driveway repair with him to make sure things were understood," Sole said. "I knew that a large amount of soil had been washed out underneath the slab. I knew they didn't back-fill it properly. I knew the street had raised up, and I wanted to make sure all of that stuff was in his report so it could be taken care of."
Sole said Citizen's patched the broken water main with gravel and would only agree to repair the driveway. He said Citizen's told him to take his other concerns to the city, but finding who is responsible for the mess in front of his home has been a bad game of runaround.
"The representative at the action center basically said to me the street issue is DPW and DPW said the issue is a Citizen's issue," Sole said. Citizen's tells me it's not their issue. Nobody is going to tell me when the street's going to be fixed. Nobody is going to give me a schedule on my driveway, and I just don't know who to turn to anymore."
After weeks of frustration, Sole turned to RTV6 hoping the responsible party will properly repair the water main, driveway and street so that Deer Run Drive doesn't turn into Deer Run River.
"I keep telling everybody, I just want my driveway back. I want my wife to be safe, I want my road fixed. it's not that difficult just give it back to me the way it was," Sole said.
We took Sole's concerns to Citizen's Energy Group, which said they are now investigating and may be able to tell us more early next week. RTV6 is also checking with DPW and the Indiana Regulatory Commission to see who is responsible for the repairs. We will bring you more next we as we dig more into the problem.
