Horton Avenue Flood Victims Sue Town, County for Negligence

Residents of Horton Avenue whose homes were destroyed by flooding in late March of last year have filed a suit in State Supreme Court, charging the town with negligence for not correcting conditions that, they claim, have been causing severe flooding going back to the late 1950s.

The suit also alleges that town officials might have been negligent even in allowing the ten homes to be built where they were built since the land was not suitable for houses — most of which were originally purchased by blacks and remain black-owned, according to the group’s attorney, J. Stuart Moore of Central Islip.

“It begs the question,” Moore told Patch Wednesday. “If they were not African-Americans, would this problem have been rectified years ago? And would that land have been sold to anyone else?”

Moore said that flooding problems may have been exacerbated when the town installed a traffic circle several years ago to connect Horton Avenue, Osborn Avenue and Middle Road and claimed the town should have known that the catch basins installed were inadequate.

Though the suit does not ask for a specific amount of monetary damages, Moore estimates that the 10 homes destroyed had a market value of around $350,000 each, which would total a minimum of $3.5 million.

He added that the amount doesn’t take into account personal effects that had been lost nor potential health problems that could result.

“There may be some latent defects,” he said. “We don’t know yet if the water run-off contained toxins or carcinogens.”

Town attorney Robert Kozakiewicz said Wednesday that he couldn’t comment on the suit because he hadn’t yet read it.

He did confirm, however, that the outside law firm the town has hired to handle the case, Devitt, Spellman & Barrett of Smithtown,  has already begun interviewing some of the plaintiffs following Moore’s filing of a notice of claim three months ago.

“We have the right under municipal law to conduct what are called 50-H hearings to explore the claim and determine the legitimacy of it in order to reject, deny or approve it,” Kozakiewicz said.

, owner of one of the homes destroyed, said Wednesday, “Our hope is that we can keep this out of court. However, it’s not in the best interest of Horton Avenue residents not to have a backup plan.”

She said a backup plan was needed because her group has still not received a response to the request it made to Albany 15 months ago for the state to allocate some of its Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to assist the flood victims. 

According to Moore, Hobson and three other plaintiffs have sat through H-50 interviews conducted by William Barrett of the outside law firm, each averaging between five to eight hours.

Suffolk County has also been named in the suit because, Moore explained, the county’s health department may have been involved in approving development plans on Osborn Avenue north of the flood area that may have contributed to the severe flooding.