Local

Senior residents displaced from apartments after major water leak on Christmas Day

CHARLOTTE — Residents at the Magnolia Senior Apartments on Beatties Ford Road in Charlotte were told to leave after a water leak on Christmas Day affected several units.

“Something wasn’t insulated properly,” resident Valerie Price said. “The pipes or something. And I guess the water, it burst.”

The building’s management company told the seniors it would pay for them to stay at hotels in the meantime.

“It’s about 85, 86 of us, and we had to go where we could go,” resident Mary May said. “Some people have family, and they’ve gone there. But the majority of us are in hotels.”

The residents have not returned in three days. Some left essentials, including medication, at their apartments.

“I don’t have enough clothes,” Price said. “I still have medicine in there. It’s just a mess.”

Channel 9 contacted Raleigh-based Excel Property Management to ask if residents would get more time to get their belongings and when they might be able to return.

The director of property management for the company that manages the Magnolia Senior Apartments asked Channel 9 to submit those questions. We are waiting for a response.

“When they evacuated us, they said maybe two or three days,” resident Barbara Young said. “Later on, we heard it was going to be, like, two or three months.”

The residents said this has been an ordeal that has left them powerless.

“They need to do better as far as communication,” Young said.

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Jonathan Lowe

Jonathan Lowe, wsoctv.com

Jonathan is a reporter for WSOC-TV.