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Overland Park residents still rebuilding after fire

Posted at 4:26 PM, Aug 08, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-08 18:28:36-04

“When you think about what you lose, everything in your house, there's so much,” Debby Foster said. “It just gets overwhelming very easy and then the paperwork comes back.”

On March 22, Debby Foster took 41 Action News inside her home to show the damagethe March 20 fire left to both her house and her neighborhood.

Now, she’s rebuilding, and she said it hasn’t been easy.

“There's like a process within a process within a process,” she said. “Because you're working with the contractors. They're working with subcontractors, so they all have a process. Then, I'm trying to work with the insurance company for both the exterior and the interior. And they all have a process.” 

Seeing how her neighborhood is now, she said she’s glad she and her neighbors are starting to rebuild, but it can be difficult.

“It's just kind of sad that the whole thing happened,” Foster said. “You wish you wouldn't but you did.”

Extended coverage 

Investigators: OP apartment fire was accidental

OP neighborhood assessing damages after fire

Doorbell camera captures Overland Park fire

Foster said she’s ready to get back to her old routine.

“You look forward to the day you get to come home,” she said.

With the move-in date now pushed back to possibly October, Foster hopes to be back in her home before the New Year.

“If I can get in before the holidays, that'll be good,” Foster said. “It'll be nice to be back before the holidays.”

She said throughout this process, it has taught her to document everything in her home.

“Because when it's all gone, you just don't understand how crazy that feels,” she said.

Seeing the CityPlace apartment complex being rebuilt, she said she’s hopeful but also a little anxious.

“I think all of us, especially right here, are just a little nervous about it because it was an accident, we all know that,” Foster said. “But we hope that they're watching and a little more careful, and everybody's watching a little bit more and we don't want another accident so that's the big thing right there.”

We did reach out to the developer, Block Multifamily Group. A spokeswoman said its contractor, Titan Built, now has a new construction process in place.

The contractors have eliminated all welding on wood frame multifamily projects, which caused the fire.

It’s a new procedure that has changed for this project and all other projects.