The District offered residents free sandbags to combat the rain and flooding, but first they had to find them.
Roughly half a dozen people gathered Thursday evening at a Department of Public Works building to collect on the city’s offer. But they were forced to wait while city employees searched for the misplaced sandbags.
“I do not want to be down on my hands and knees pushing water out of my basement,” said Neal Allison, a 38-year-old Capitol Hill resident, who showed up around 7 p.m. at the city’s site near the corner of K Street and New Jersey Avenue SE.
Allison said he had to buy sandbags himself in the past, and hoped to stay ahead of the flooding this time around.
Others waiting for sandbags told similar stories.
“I live next to an alley, and if the city’s streets are backed up we get flooded,” said LaWanda Sanders, 35, who came to pick up sandbags with her husband Corey, 41.
But Allison and the Sanders had to wait and worry about the flooding while city employees scrambled to find the sandbags.
After a 15-minute search, workers found the misplaced bags buried beneath a pile of garbage in a warehouse trash bin. It took another 15 minutes for them to clear away the trash.
“Unbelievable,” Corey Sanders said.
