When the power went out for five days in mid-December, some Fauntleroy residents were in the midst of fighting an onslaught of mud that had left their basements waist deep in soil, sand and gravel.

Hard hit were Jack Lawless and Jennifer Forrey. They live on the quietest stretch of Fauntleroy Way, south of the Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal.

On Dec. 14, they arrived home to discover their 17-foot boat floating in the driveway and a freezer bobbing on its side in the basement sludge. The goo had risen to partly envelope Lawless' tropical fish aquariums.

The muck ran through a neighbor's backyard, around the corner of the house and along a gated pathway, where the goo stream dropped south and into the basement window well of the Lawless-Forrey house. The side yard and a pond down the street were swamped too.

Lawless and Forrey blame the mud invasion on piles of sand and gravel that a contractor placed near the intersection of Brace Point Drive and 47th Avenue Southwest. The sand and gravel was being used by Pilchuck Contractors, Inc., a Kirkland-based construction firm, to backfill trenches for new natural gas lines that its workers were installing for Puget Sound Energy.

Forrey and Lawless said the Pilchuck workers didn't cover the sand and gravel piles with tarps. That could've prevented the materials from washing away in the heavy rain and snowstorms that hit Seattle two months ago. According to the National Weather Service, Seattle got 6.85 inches of rain in December, which is 26 percent above normal.

Nor did the contractor's workers empty "storm socks" that were placed in about nine storm drains around the neighborhood, Lawless and Forrey said. The tube-shape devices are required by the city of Seattle. Made of heavy felt, the socks are designed to catch sediment and pollutants that escape construction sites.

According to the Seattle Department of Planning and Development, socks are supposed to be cleaned or replaced when half full of sediment. It's up to contractors to inspect the socks after half an inch of rainfall falls within 24 hours. Contractors also are supposed to remove all socks within 30 days after they're no longer needed.

According to Forrey and Lawless, the storm socks in their neighborhood were full of muck on Dec. 14. When the mudflow couldn't get into the storm drains, it went down streets, through yards and into houses, they said.

"No comment," responded Ben Nelson, vice president of operations for Pilchuck Contractors. "It's a private matter."

Pilchuck Contractors has a 9-year contract with Puget Sound Energy to remove old underground gas mains, including in the Fauntleroy neighborhood south of the ferry dock, said Dennis Smedsrud, spokesman for Puget Sound Energy. Pilchuck Contractors is replacing the old steel and even wrought iron natural gas lines with polyethylene plastic pipes, which are more flexible and less likely to break in an earthquake, he said. Polyethylene handles gas pressure better too, Smedsrud said.

More than 200 homeowners throughout Seattle have filed claims with the city for storm-related damage to their houses as a result of the pre-Christmas wind and cold, said Andy Ryan, spokesman for Seattle Public Utilities.

In January, the city sent reminders to 2,000 construction companies stating it is the contractors' responsibility to properly maintain storm socks, Ryan said.

As the mudflow stopped, Lawless and Forrey went straight to work getting the muck out of their basement. The lower 4 feet of the basement walls were a complete loss and Lawless didn't want the mud's moisture to saturate the walls any higher up. That could've ruined the entire house.

He hired four men to help muck out the basement as fast as possible. They cut away the lower half of all the basement drywall and replaced the insulation. Lawless, who is retired, has since restored the basement

They had to replace their furnace, freezer, washer, drier, water heater, stove and a microwave oven.

Besides his tropical fish, Lawless also raises silver salmon in his basement for release in nearby Fauntleroy Creek. He has 500 tiny salmon in a large aquarium, where the water is kept at 49 degrees. He's been raising fish for Fauntleroy Creek for the past nine years.

Tim St. Clair can be reached at tstclair@robinsonnews.com or 932-0300.