By Carol L. Cole

Transcript Staff Writer

The smell is something you won’t forget, sort of a stinking, rotting smell that makes your eyes blink and throat sore.

The crawl space at Chrissie Griffin’s home at 3307 48th Avenue NW is something to behold, but not in a good way. About a foot-and-a-half of putrid, stagnant water was trapped in the space — it was down to about 8 inches of water on Wednesday afternoon — and it is rapidly causing black mold to permeate her house.

“So it’s nasty,” Griffin said, her voice raspy. “I have a really bad sore throat.”

The home, which was built in the 1930s and moved to the site in the mid 1960s, has never flooded, even in wetter-than-average years in the 1970s. But this year is different.

Water crept near her house on 3.12 acres several times earlier this year. The crawl space flooded first on June 26, then June 28 and most recently Tuesday morning.

It’s meant Griffin has had to stay in a hotel.

Her barn is flooded, her hay ruined, her two horses sick. She moved them to a friend’s house but is keeping her dogs on the premises.

And the septic system is out of commission and can’t be pumped until the water is out of the crawl space. E. coli has contaminated her water well, as it has her neighbors’.

Griffin, who has lived there three years, had been tearing her carpet out herself. The single mom, who is broker/owner of Trustworthy Realty, hasn’t worked much in days.

“This is a full-time job,” she said. “Trying to deal with that stinking mold is just nasty. It stinks.”

Her insurance agent said her policy won’t pay for damage from flooding or from developments or zoning.

But now she’s getting some help. The City of Norman loaned her a pump to help her get the water out of her crawl space.

And the American Red Cross provided Griffin bottled water, food, a hotel room and have said they’ll help her replace her hay. They plan to contribute $150 toward replacement of her beds.

“They’ve been great,” she said. “I didn’t know they did some of these things.”

But until Griffin’s septic system is back up and running and the mold and E. coli taken care of, she will not be able to move back in.

The City of Norman also brought her neighbors, Darrell and Pam Jennings, a water tanker until their well is decontaminated, also from E. coli.

Griffin notes the irony of her situation.

She spoke in favor to the Norman City Council for the then-proposed, controversial Windstone Farms development, which is now called Fountainview Addition.

“I thought it would make property values go up,” Griffin said. “I had faith that they would do things responsibly.”

And she had been critical of her neighbor Pam Jennings, who vehemently opposed the development, saying it would cause drainage problems. No more.

The neighbors in the area believe the development, which is being built uphill to the east of their homes, contributes to their problem.

The developer, Sassan Moghadam of Precision Builders, brought in earth-moving equipment Wednesday afternoon to try to clear a channel and clean out tin horns for water to drain off his property just east of 48th Avenue NW and south of Griffin’s and the Jennings’ homes.

“When they say he’s timely, he was from June 26 to July 11 timely,” Griffin said, surveying the yellow bulldozers as they moved in to work.

Moghadam’s insurance agent has said he would meet with Griffin on Monday morning.

And Griffin said Moghadam made a verbal offer of $175,000 on her property, which she turned down, saying he had flooded her house and was now attempting to buy it cheap.

Moghadam on Tuesday blamed the drainage problems on record rains.

“We certainly did not create the rain,” he said. “I feel for the neighbors. … But we certainly don’t feel like it’s anything we’ve done.”

Carol L. Cole

366-3538

ccole@normantranscript.com