Water poured through the walls and ceilings of the Woodland Park Apartments at 430 East O’Keefe Street in East Palo Alto when storms hit on October 22, soaking floors and leaving residents scrambling to salvage belongings. The flooding was severe enough that the city red-tagged all 58 units in the building, forcing every household out while crews scrambled to assess the damage. More than a week later, dozens of tenants are still displaced, shuttling between hotel rooms far from home as repairs continue unit by unit.
Rachel Anderson, who has lived at Woodland Park for five years, told NBC Bay Area that a roof the complex had been patching for months finally gave way. “The roof that they’ve been fixin’ on for the last couple of months — so it finally caved through,” she said, describing how water then came pouring through the walls. Tenants said the damage left their walls and floors soaked, and the property owner moved everyone out of their units in response.
Dozens of Units Still Off-Limits
City crews have worked every day since the red-tagging to get people back into their homes, according to the station’s report. East Palo Alto Mayor Webster Lincoln said 50 of the 58 units have now been cleared for residents to return, but eight others still need permitted repairs that may take longer than a week. Repairs to those units may take longer than a week.
Even for those cleared to go back, some tenants remain wary. Several described a lingering odor they say smells like mold, and Anderson said she doesn’t think a quick cleanup will be enough to convince her it’s safe. She said carpet cleaning and patched walls alone would not be sufficient for her to move back in. Lincoln said he noticed a strong odor himself during a building tour last Thursday, after red tags had already come down on some units, and said he plans to ask city staff to require moisture readings or air quality testing before residents are allowed to move back in.
A Long Commute Just to Sleep
The property owner put tenants up in hotel rooms while their units were red-tagged, first placing them in Palo Alto. But after the first few days, tenants said they were relocated to a hotel in San Mateo — a 14-mile, 19-minute drive from their apartments. That distance has been especially hard on tenants without cars who work in Palo Alto, Anderson said, and families say the extra gas money needed to reach jobs and their kids’ schools is eating into the budgets they’d normally use to pay rent…