Storm-Flooded Leisure World Residents Take Anger to Court

As the El Nino nightmare hit cul-de-sac 67 at the sprawling Leisure World complex in Laguna Hills one day last December, 95-year-old Dolores Mingoy tightly gripped her walker and stepped gingerly out of her waterlogged manor--straight into a 4-foot-high flood.

“It came up to my chin,” she said, still upset over the experience. “I’m 4-foot-7. I thought I was going to drown.”

She retreated back into her soggy dwelling, where she ended up living with soaked carpeting and furniture for days and suffering silently for months afterward.

Then, one by one, neighbors in the cul-de-sac, meeting at kaffeeklatsches, discovered they all had suffered through a harrowing ordeal, together losing 30 cars and sustaining flooding in 20 of their manors.

In the process, this once-disorganized and somewhat downtrodden group, ages 65 to 95, has found the will and the way to stand and fight in a saga that they say is nearly as much about dignity as it is about damage.

They have filed individual small-claims suits against the cooperative and its management, saying clogged storm drains and insufficient drainage capacity caused the worst of the flooding. Nineteen homeowners have filed so far, with tentative court dates starting this month.

“Our management company is playing on the fact that we’re old and we get tired and don’t like to fight,” said June Todd, 68, who organized the kaffeeklatsches. “Well, we may be old, but we’re not stupid.”

The residents decided to file their suits in Orange County Small Claims Court, with its $5,000 limit on claims, instead of in Superior Court, partly in hopes of a speedier resolution.

Why? At their ages, the plaintiffs said, time is of the essence.

“You know what they say about folks who live in Leisure World,” joked plaintiff and resident Robert Rayce. “We never buy green bananas.”

For its part, the management company said there was no negligence or lack of oversight that contributed to the flooding, which, representatives point out, paralyzed the county and set records for rainfall levels.

“We’ve been very sympathetic to what they went through,” said Russell Disbro, general manager of Professional Community Management Inc. of Laguna Hills, which manages the 18,000-resident Leisure World complex.

“It was a tough time. It was a tough day,” he said.

Disbro said the cooperative spent thousands of dollars to repair walls and floors of the flooded manors, but that personal property--furniture, clothing, cars, other belongings--must be covered by residents’ own insurance.

But many of the residents said they watched that morning as crews scraped debris from a 4-foot-wide sewer grate, which made a loud “sucking sound” as it gulped down the flood waters.

Members of the Orange County Fire Authority verified the residents’ account.

“A very big piece of plastic had gotten in the drain and clogged it,” said Capt. Steve Loritz, in charge of the responding unit. “We got in there and pulled it out and down went the water.

“It’s not that the system was overwhelmed,” he said. “There was plenty of room for the waters to go down. And as soon as the drain was unclogged, the water went down.”

John Lathrop, 67, a homeowner and spokesman for the group, said other debris, including wood chips from the horse trail that meanders through the manors, blocked the drains.

A report filed by firefighters blames poor drain maintenance for the flooded homes. “Maintenance Co. should have been in area before flood occurred,” it said.

The rain began falling about 2 a.m. By 4 a.m., some of the homeowners were awakened by the sound of water splashing in their manors.

“I heard the water bubbling under my bed,” Ruby Johnston said. “I thought, ‘I’d better get up and see what happened.’ I got out of bed and had water, cold water, up to my knees.”

One by one, residents discovered the flood and tried to get help, confronting power outages, dead phone lines and nobody outside to help.

Ruth Wallace, 76, managed to get a call to her son before her phone went dead. But when Steve Wallace arrived from Rancho Santa Margarita, he couldn’t get to her front door.

So Ruth, who hadn’t kicked anything in decades, had to climb onto the arm of chair, rear back and use her feet to kick out a window screen so her son could lift her to safety.

Todd, 68, left her manor, her purse in one hand and her planner in another, and walked into a wall of water chest deep.

“I felt myself starting to slip under the water,” she said. Finally, someone grabbed her and walked her to safety on higher ground.

All around the cul-de-sac, similar dramas played out.

Homeowner Rayce called security before his phone service went dead and was told to block his doors with towels. Rayce did so--even though the water was already inside.

Margaret Hancock, Todd’s neighbor, awoke to the sound of voices outside, went to get out of bed and stepped into water. Fearing electrocution, she backtracked, then remembered her 14-year-old sheltie. She scooped the little dog out of the water and put it on a chair, momentarily forgetting her back problems and two artificial knees.

“The water was 6 inches deep--I measured it,” she said.

Things got worse when residents began realizing that their cars, in nearby carports, were all under water. Nearly every car was flooded to the base of the windows--enough to soak carpeting and upholstery and, more important, drench sensitive electronics. Most were damaged beyond repair.

Later, filing insurance claims, many of the homeowners discovered that their older, low-mileage cars couldn’t be replaced for their value on paper and the settlements they were offered.

Rayce initially was offered a $300 settlement for his 1985 Camry. Jack Latter, 84, had a 1983 Chevrolet Malibu. Karen Mower had a 1988 Buick, with 69,000 miles.

“They may have been older cars and not worth very much, but they were in tiptop condition,” Todd said.

“It was going to last me the rest of my life,” Ruby Runyan said of her 1991 Mazda truck.

For some, finding temporary housing was difficult. Maxine Lowery and Mingoy were taken to a hotel but were told two days of paid housing were the most authorized for the flood. Dejected, they returned to their soggy manors, awaiting work crews for several more days.

Others stayed for days and weeks with relatives. Some remained in hotels, pressing their housing claims with the management company.

Just as residents began to recover from the December El Nino onslaught, they were flooded again in February. Drains were kept clear and none of the manors sustained interior flooding, but the lower-lying carport flooded again--though not as badly--damaging some of the new cars, residents said.

For many of them, the flood ruined belongings in every bottom drawer and on each closet floor, every lower table ledge and bottom bookshelf, and anything stored behind a sofa or in a hidden corner.

Homeowner Todd, who also sells Leisure World real estate, began discovering common threads in people’s stories from the floods in cul-de-sac 67, finally organizing them into group meetings over coffee.

Most reported difficulty in dealing with PCM, the management company, and they began writing letters together and going to board meetings.

“We discovered they were paying for something for one person but not for the others,” Todd said. “We were discovering a lot of inequality in treatment.

“Finally, I called the management company and said, ‘What exactly do we have a right to?’ They told me, ‘You don’t have a right to anything.’ ”

After denying the homeowners’ claims for personal property damage, Disbro wrote to warn homeowners that PCM would fight tooth and nail against the small-claims lawsuits, appealing adverse decisions and possibly forcing residents to hire attorneys and travel to Santa Ana.

The residents denounced the management company’s response as “arrogance” and “intimidation,” something Disbro dismissed in an interview, saying such charges went along with being the complex’s general manager.

“I think what we have here is elder abuse,” said Edith Latter, 72. “We’re the victims and they’re trying to act like we don’t exist.”

“They were so rude,” Mower said. “They treated us like idiots and kindergartners.”

Disbro said he and employees respect the homeowners but have to follow procedures in running the complex.

“We’re doing the best we can, and we all have the same goal of trying to get this resolved,” he said. “By the same token, there’s a process you have to follow.”

Newly organized, the Leisure World residents have been urged on by other owners in the complex who share their feelings about management, and by their own children, many of whom are Orange County professionals.

“They do take advantage of the fact that we’re older and retired,” Todd said. “Nothing would be done if we didn’t get together as a group.

“Some of our ladies have never had to stand up for themselves or deal with the authorities,” she said. “Maybe the next generation will be better prepared. But we’re learning.”