A Massachusetts family’s basement was flooded with hundreds of gallons of heating oil in a disastrous mishap just days before they were scheduled to host Thanksgiving after a company pumped the batch into the wrong house on Tuesday.
The oil company, Fawcett Energy, was supposed to make the delivery at a home on Linwood Street in Malden, Mass., but instead showed up at a home on Linwood Street in Medford, Mass., roughly 10 miles away, CBS News reported.
The Medford home was equipped with a pipe to push the oil into a tank in the basement — except there was no tank. Homeowner Dan Nguyen told NBC 10 Boston that the oil tank was removed five years ago.
Nguyen’s wife and brother-in-law were home Tuesday when they noticed a foul odor spreading through their home and went outside to find the surprise delivery person pumping oil into the pipe and directly into their house, he told the local news station.
Roughly 385 gallons of oil were leaked into Nguyen’s basement, Medford Fire Department Deputy Chief Nicholas Davis estimated.
“Normally, when you’re filling up an oil tank, once it starts to get full, you’ll hear the whistle and that tells the driver to shut down the oil. There’s no whistle because there’s no tank,” Davis told WCVB.
Despite the catastrophe, Nguyen was understanding, even after his home had to be evacuated because of the dangerous fumes.
“Someone made a mistake, you know, sometimes they put a wrong address,” Nguyen told the outlet.
The home isn’t safe to live in for the foreseeable future, which put a snag in the family’s Thanksgiving plans, as he told CBS News they were set to host 20 people for turkey dinner.
“I am going to call tomorrow and cancel,” Nguyen relented.
Nguyen’s brother, Tien, told NBC 10 Boston that everything was “messed up in the basement” and that they “don’t know how long” until they will be allowed to return.
For now, they’ll be hunkering down at a relative’s home with the belongings they were able to salvage from their home. The six residents of the home are also receiving assistance from the Red Cross, the outlet reported.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the building inspector are both investigating the incident.
It’s unclear how long the home repair could take. The Post reached out to Fawcett Energy for comment.
