A Clearwater family was left facing a sewer repair bill topping $7,500 after utility workers installing Verizon fiber-optic lines in their neighborhood severed the sewage pipe running to their home. Andreas Chodura paid $1,500 out of his own pocket to get the damage fixed, then spent weeks fighting both Verizon and the city of Clearwater over who should cover the rest.
According to WFLA, utility workers for Verizon severed the sewage pipe about a week before Chodura noticed the problem, while crews were laying fiber-optic cable through the neighborhood. Chodura filed claims with both Verizon and the city, hoping one of them would pick up the remaining cost. Instead, both denied responsibility, each saying the mistake was not its fault, the station reported.
A City Review Points to a Skipped Step
The station's report notes that the city of Clearwater pointed to Florida's Sunshine 811 damage-prevention requirements, which call for contractors to verify the location of underground utilities before they begin excavation or directional drilling. The city said its review found the sewer line had already been marked at the curb before drilling began, but that the contractor did not complete the required verification step first.
Those rules exist because the stakes of skipping them are real statewide. Underground lines are hit roughly 100 times a day across Florida, according to Sunshine 811, with consequences the organization describes as ranging from fines in the thousands of dollars to lawsuits topping $10 million. The group tracks these incidents from the Panhandle to the Keys, framing a severed line like the one at Chodura's home as part of a much larger, ongoing pattern.
Verizon Reverses Course After Investigator Steps In
With both Verizon and the city declining to pay, Chodura turned to consumer investigator Shannon Behnken and WFLA's Better Call Behnken team for help. After the station contacted Verizon, a representative called Chodura to say the company had decided to cover the full amount of the damages, per the same account relayed by WFLA.
The reversal came only after outside pressure, but it meant Chodura no longer had to absorb the cost of a pipe he did not break. The $1,500 he had already paid out of pocket stands as the only amount confirmed to have come directly from his own funds before Verizon's decision to pay the remainder.
What the Law Says About Underground Damage
Disputes like this one sit within a broader legal framework governing utility excavation damage in Florida. Under Chapter 556 of the Florida Senate's 2025 Florida Statutes, damages for loss of revenue and loss of use tied to a damaged underground facility may not exceed $500,000 per affected facility, with an exception carved out for certain revenues of a governmental member operator used to support bond payments. The limit applies to loss-of-revenue and loss-of-use damages, not all damages in underground-facility disputes.
The Common Ground Alliance, a group that tracks damage to buried infrastructure across the country, publishes what it calls the only comprehensive accounting and analysis of such incidents in the United States and Canada through its DIRT report, underscoring that cases like this one are part of a recurring national issue rather than an isolated mishap.
