The homeless shelter in the basement of the Port Townsend American Legion building had to temporarily move due to recent flooding damage from a broken city water main.
Bob Saring, club manager for …
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The homeless shelter in the basement of the Port Townsend American Legion building had to temporarily move due to recent flooding damage from a broken city water main.
Bob Saring, club manager for the American Legion’s Marvin G Shields Memorial Post No. 26, said the shelter was quickly relocated to the legion’s banquet hall upstairs after water from the broken pipe flooded one end of Water Street in downtown Port Townsend.
“For two or three days we couldn’t use the basement at all,” Saring said. “The flooding soaked pretty much the whole floor.”
To continue accommodating the guests, Saring said volunteers moved 32 cots into the large gathering hall upstairs.
The shelter is managed by Olympic Community Action Programs. As for the extent of the damage, Saring, said OlyCAP was navigating the claim process with the insurance company to assess and remedy any remaining damage.
“I’m not quite sure where OlyCAP is at with it,” Saring said. “I know they had to tear off some drywall off the walls. They found some mold in a section of cabinets that they’re going to have to replace. Other than that it was mainly just the water on the floor that had to get cleaned up.”
The broken pipe closed off a section of Water Street and prompted a pollution warning for Port Townsend Bay after a sewage overflow.
While city crews worked quickly to staunch the flow, they were unable to plug the leak before 180,000 gallons poured out of the ruptured iron pipe, which the city estimates cost about $120,000 to repair.
Saring said the Port Townsend Legion post first opened its doors to the homeless more than a dozen years ago, when a group of legionnaires started using the location to house homeless veterans. The spot has since welcomed anyone struggling with homelessness.
“In one form or another it’s been going on for the last 13 or 14 years,” Saring said.
The shelter is very impactful for those who need to get out of the elements for a night, he added.
That said, the hall in the main level of the American Legion building is not particularly well-suited to housing the shelter’s guests.
“The hall here at the Legion, it’s really not ideal for setting up cots and a shelter; it’s really more of an emergency shelter,” Saring said. “We’re a banquet hall, we’re not a shelter.”
“But you gotta do what you can,” he added.
After about two days of operating up in the banquet hall, the shelter’s guests returned to the basement, Saring said.
