Demolition crews pull down wrong house in Rowlett Texas

The Billy L Nabors Demolition Company of Seagoville Texas made the mistake of tearing down a house at 7601 and 7603 Calypso Drive in Rowlett Texas when they were supposed to demolish a house a block away at 7601 Cousteau Drive.

The owners of the house were in the process of deciding whether they would repair or rebuild the house. They contacted, the demolition company but initially received no apology. Instead, they were sent a screenshot and a text message showing that the Google Maps arrow for 7601 points at their home. If the demolition team had checked out the street address the error would have been picked up.

Nabors CEO George Gomez later said that the mistake was "not a big deal." City Manager, Brian Funderburk, said: "The homeowners were in the process of trying to figure out what it was going to take to repair their home and now they're looking at rebuilding it instead. I think this is a very big deal."

The homes in the area were badly damaged by tornadoes in December. The owner of the house demolished, Lindsay Diaz, said: "Boom. Just like the tornado came through again." The family had been relieved that their house was not as badly off as others including the one that was supposed to be demolished. An engineer had declared the home was structurally sound. She was ready to make repairs.

She found out that the crew sent for the demolition had not confirmed the street name. She was surprised when she phoned the president of the demolition company that he started making excuses rather than apologizing: “I didn’t believe he was telling me this. I was hoping for an apology, I’m sorry my company did this. We’ll make it better, and instead he’s telling me how the insurance is going to handle it and telling me that it’s going to be a nasty fight,” The president of Nabors had no comment. Diaz is still hoping that the company will help her but otherwise she will be seeking legal advice.

Rowlett is a small city that is a northeastern suburb of Dallas. It had a population over of 56,000 in the 2013 census. It is a quiet upscale bedroom community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Rowlett is not the only place in the area to have had a house mistakenly demolished. In 2013 in the Fort Worth area the city demolished two wrong homes within two days..