Residents complain of no water for six days at Donelson apartment

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - Multiple people living at a Donelson apartment complex say they have gone nearly a week without water after extreme cold caused freeze-related leaks during Christmas weekend.

Brennen Wilde, who lives at the Stewarts Ferry Apartments, says his water was shut off on Christmas Eve, and to his knowledge, hasn’t been turned back on since.

“So many people here have been very inconvenienced, and it feels like we’re getting nowhere with it,” Wilde said.

Wilde showed WSMV 4 his sinks and bathroom. They were all without running water Thursday, six days since it had been initially turned off.

Wilde and his fiancé have been spending time at his parents’, where they can at least shower and do laundry, but Wilde knows many of his neighbors don’t have that luxury.

“They’ve got nowhere to go. You don’t have water for five to six days, you’ve got to find somewhere,” he said. “They’re telling us to go through renter’s insurance, but renter’s insurance only covers it if you’ve had damage.”

Wilde hoped water would be restored sometime Thursday based on what he was told by the complex, but now he fears his water outage could drag on into the weekend.

“I want them to know that I understand that this is severe weather. They can’t stop the cold. They can’t make it warmer,” he said. “But they can change how they deal with it.”

Fogelman, the company that owns Stewarts Ferry Apartments, sent this statement to WSMV Thursday evening:

Thank you for your inquiry about Stewarts Ferry. We are hearing many reports of wide-scale freeze-related problems, including water damage from frozen pipes and water and electrical outages in the Nashville area and across a large part of the country. Our community and residents were also severely impacted by freeze-related damage. Our team and contractors are working tirelessly through the holidays to complete repairs and restore our residents’ homes.

Unfortunately, because of the location of many freeze-related leaks, the water to a large portion of our community must be shut off to complete the individual repairs. These water service interruptions are intermittent and only last as long as necessary to make the needed repairs. However, we continue to discover new leaks, which also require water service interruption to repair, so water interruption has been necessary on a few occasions. Our management team has regularly notified our residents in advance of these interruptions and of the status of repairs. They will continue these resident communications until all repairs are completed. It is always our goal to address all emergency repair issues immediately and completely, but the current circumstances are preventing that. We are grateful for our residents’ patience and understanding (especially for those who have shared a word of encouragement with our team) as we work through all the needed repairs. We are committed to fully repairing all freeze-related damage as soon as possible.

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