After heavy storms led to flooding in Detroit this summer, 800 people filed claims asking for help dealing with the damages.
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and the Great Lakes Water Authority will eventually have to figure out which claims each department is responsible for settling.
But in the meantime, officials are going to start paying out settlements. Director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department Gary Brown says he wants to get money in the hands of customers as soon as possible.
"That's really simple. We're not going to put our residents, our customers, in the middle of an administrative process as to who is going to pay the claims," Brown said.
Brown says the city wants to settle with everyone who filed a claim by the end of the year. But right now, the focus is on people whose furnace or hot water heaters were damaged by flooding, and residents living under the poverty line.
A third-party firm will begin the process of settling each claim; a process Brown hopes to have completed by the end of the year.
"We want to be fair,” Brown said. “We certainly can't pay out more than what's fair. But we want to be fair and get these claims resolved as quick as possible."
