SAN ANTONIO — A blog post written during last year’s major Texas winter storm sheds light on what one Boerne family went through as frigid temperatures and snow slammed the area for several days.
Jaime Luna wrote the entry to describe how he morphed from a dad into an insurance agent on his family’s own home.
“As San Antonio began to thaw out of the deep freeze that shut down the city and left homes without power and then water, a pipe in my own home burst,” he wrote last year on February 24.
Luna said a neighbor called to let him know water was coming from the home. The family had just left to go use a shower at a friend’s house nearby.
“Turns out there was water oozing from a pipe in the attic. I didn’t even know we had pipes up there,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.
A busted water line began leaking into the dining room below causing the ceiling to give in and create a hole. Then water began spreading to other areas of the home.
“It started dripping water into our pantry, and over everything in there as well like food. Then it starts dripping into our wood flooring so now we not only have water damage to the dining room and pantry, now we got to replace the wood floors in our living room,” said Luna.
There was also water leaking out of a water line valve and well spigot outside. Since Luna couldn’t stop the water, he began going through his list of contacts for help.
“I was able to reach some of our contacts and just say, ‘Hey which one of you guys can get out here today?’,” he said.
Luna said his experience as an insurance agent helped out. A plumber was able to stop the leaking and eventually provide a permanent fix. Then he brought in a restoration company to repair the damage on the home. Luna said it was about three months before his house looked back to normal.
His insurance policy helped pay for the more than $20,000 worth of damage.
“It was extremely shocking to us how much it cost,” said Luna.
A year later Luna said his family is more than ready for when bad weather strikes. During the most recent winter blasts this year, he said they stocked up on drinking water, driveway salt and plenty of blankets.
“We bought covers for the water lines and we got covers for the spigots outside. It’s better to be overprepared than to be underprepared,” he said.