Stoves, heaters at Durham public housing community emitting carbon monoxide, CEO says

About 40 percent of McDougald Terrace apartments inspected on Tuesday had appliances that were emitting carbon monoxide, the chief executive officer of the Durham Housing Authority said Wednesday.

Officials inspected 70 occupied apartments and identified furnaces, hot water heaters and stoves that need to be replaced due to carbon monoxide emissions in 28 of them.

“All of this is concerning,” CEO Anthony Scott told reporters during a press briefing. “We wouldn’t be taking these extraordinary measures (if it wasn’t). That is why we are doing what we are doing now.”

The authority began evacuating people from the complex on Lawson Street last week. About 200 households are now staying in 225 hotel rooms, Scott said.

After Wednesday’s inspections, Scott said, the authority will have a better understanding of the issues, including whether it should evacuate the entire 360-unit complex.

“We just need a little more time to assess what the results are going to be,” he said.

CO: The invisible killer

The Consumer Product Safety Commission calls carbon monoxide, also known as CO, the “Invisible Killer” because it’s a colorless, odorless, poisonous gas, according to its website.

Every year an average of 430 people die in the United States from accidental CO poisoning linked to faulty, improperly used or incorrectly vented furnaces, stoves, water heaters and fireplaces, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Durham, officials have said they cannot rule out carbon monoxide in the recent deaths of two babies at McDougald Terrace until autopsies after completed. About 10 other adults and children at the complex have been treated for CO exposure.

Of the 28 McDougald Terrace units with hazardous appliances, 13 required replacing the stove, a relatively simple fix, Scott said.

Water heater and furnace issues are more complicated to properly repair.

“It’s not as simple as taking out a stove and putting it in. You have exhausts that have to be done and things of that nature,” he said.

The housing authority has reached out to local, state and federal partners for help, but doesn’t yet have an estimate on how much the repairs will cost or how long they will take.

“We need to know the scope of what we need to do, and that hasn’t been determined,” he said.

Officials inspected more units Wednesday and those results will be available Thursday. Scott expects the inspection of occupied units to be completed Wednesday.

Failed federal inspections

The Durham Housing Authority has 16 sites with about 1,800 apartments and serves nearly 10,000 people in public housing and through its voucher program, Scott said.

McDougald Terrace, completed in 1953 and Durham’s largest public housing community, has failed repeated federal inspections, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

All told, 13 DHA properties were inspected in 2019, and received scores below 60, which is failing. Of those, Cornwallis Road (31), Hoover Road (30) McDougald Terrace (31),and Oxford Manor (36), received a score below 40.

The scores demonstrate “that our properties are in bad shape,” Scott said.

“We have been talking about for years, that our public housing communities — and this is not unique to Durham but across the county — our public housing communities have suffered years and years and decades and decades of under funding,” Scott said.

DHA and city officials, including Mayor Steve Schewel, have blamed federal funding cuts for ongoing maintenance and repair problems. The N&O has asked for details documenting how much money DHA has received in recent years.

On Wednesday, Samuel Gunter, the executive director of the N.C. Housing Coalition, called the situation in Durham a crisis that could have been prevented.

“We have criminally underfunded our public housing system in this country for decades and decades,” he said in a video posted on YouTube. ”When you continue to put off maintenance costs on buildings this is the predictable result.”

Durham voters recently approved a $95 million affordable housing bond that will give DHA $59 million to modernize its properties. But the money is going to public housing communities in and near downtown and not McDougald Terrace, where the needs are so great officials say more planning is needed to come up with a financially feasible plan.

What’s next

The housing authority will hold a community meeting at 11 a.m. Saturday at Burton Elementary School. The meeting was initially scheduled to be held at T.A. Grady Recreation Center, but was moved to a larger space.

Transportation will be provided from the hotels where McDougald Terrace residents are staying, and seating at the meeting will be provided to residents first.

This story was updated at 6:07 p.m. Jan. 10, 2020.

This story was originally published January 8, 2020 at 4:36 PM.