Angry Flood Victims Wait for City to Pay Up : Ventura Boulevard: Claims for $515,000 are pending in the wake of a pipeline rupture in March.

The city has paid out $550,000 in claims for businesses, autos and apartment buildings damaged when a corroded water main burst under Ventura Boulevard last year and unleashed 6 million gallons along the trendy streets of Sherman Oaks.

Claims for another $515,000 are pending, angering some business owners who say the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power should have reimbursed them long ago for repairs made after the March 1 break near Ventura and Kester Avenue.

“I wonder how the DWP would feel if I decided not to pay my water and power bills,” said Carrie Konjoyan, who is seeking $69,630.50 for damages at several buildings her family owns along Ventura Boulevard. “My family did nothing wrong. We were victims.”

The office of Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents the affected area, has received 50 calls from people trying to resolve claims since the deluge. Only one of those is outstanding, but Yaroslavsky said he believed the DWP should have resolved more of the 212 claims by now.

“When your house burns down and Allstate comes in, the commercial shows them writing a check on the spot,” Yaroslavsky said. “We’re self-insured at DWP, and I suspect that this is not something, on this magnitude, that they’re used to.”

But the department, which has assumed liability but not admitted negligence for the break, is moving as quickly as possible to pay the claims out of department funds, said Bob Simmons, DWP senior district operations engineer. On the average, he said, claims from the break have been processed in 60 days by seven department investigators.

The 1991-92 budget for the water system allots $4.1 million for a fund that covers both litigation and claims payments.

So far, the department has approved 147 claims, agreeing to pay slightly more than half of the $1 million requested, Simmons said. In some cases, for example, the DWP reduced the amount awarded if it determined a damaged car was worth less than what the owner claimed.

Another 16 claims for $192,000 were denied because the department was unable to substantiate them, Simmons said. At least two were from restaurants claiming a loss of proceeds and another two were from people seeking lost wages because the flood prevented them from working.

Forty-nine claims are unresolved. Simmons said that those claims may be more complex, take longer to process or were filed later than others.

“From the magnitude of what happened there, I would think things are moving along pretty rapidly,” Simmons said.

The 61-year-old steel pipe, 36 inches in diameter, gave way on a late Friday afternoon, weakened by corrosion caused by acidity in the water it was carrying. That is a normal aging process, Simmons said.

What ensued was far from normal.

Water gushed down the street, hurtling curbs and flooding businesses. It flowed into subterranean parking garages at nearby apartment buildings, forming pools as deep as four feet as it seeped into the engines and interior compartments of cars.

Muddy merchandise, buckled sidewalks and water-laden vehicles are no longer evident. But the flood is a fact of daily life for merchants who have not been repaid.

“I’m very upset that this has not been taken care of at this late stage of the game,” said Dolores Blumenfeld, who submitted more than $15,000 in claims for La Reina Fashion Plaza, which she manages. “We were told that the city understood what a hardship it was and that it would be taken care of immediately.”

Most of the damage at the plaza occurred when debris carried by the water became caught in the motor of an outdoor escalator. It cost $10,440 to repair, Blumenfeld said. The plaza also hired people to clean sewage drains, inspect the garage ceiling for structural stability and replace outdoor floor tiles.

But Blumenfeld said she is still waiting to be reimbursed for bills she submitted July 17.

Konjoyan said she filed a claim three days after the break and submitted final bills for repair work Oct. 18. It took that long, she said, to compile paperwork for all of the damage.

Konjoyan wants $31,512 to repair two asphalt parking lots--one damaged by the water, the other, ironically, cracked by heavy trucks city crews used to repair damage caused by the broken water pipe. She said she has not begun the repairs because she does not have the money to pay for them.

Lee Lang, an independent television producer, has hired an attorney to help her collect money for 29 videotapes that were in the trunk of her car when it was submerged in water.

The DWP paid $6,500 for the car but denied her claim for the tapes, which she estimates are worth almost $200,000, said Lang’s attorney, Steve L. Martin.

The tapes ranged from a workout video to an instructional tape for hospitals to an animated show called “Stanley the Duck.”

Martin said he has asked the DWP to reconsider its decision and said his client may file a lawsuit to collect damages from the department.

DWP officials said they spent $2,900 in an unsuccessful attempt to clean the tapes.

They added that people dissatisfied with a department denial can submit additional information for the department to review. If still not satisfied, claimants can file a lawsuit.

Not everyone, however, is completely unhappy with the DWP.

Susie Kimmel and her husband, Andrew, received a $16,000 check for their 1974 Mercury Capri and 1988 Nissan Maxima, which were both totaled by water that pooled in the subterranean garage of their Willis Avenue apartment complex. Andrew Kimmel said he phoned the DWP every day for several months before he was paid. But Susie Kimmel said the effort was worth the trouble.

“At the time, it was a pain,” she said of the flood. “But I got a new car out of it.”