Over the weekend, severe flooding in Connecticut damaged the home of a single mother, but she managed to save a very important item from the storm’s destruction.
“We didn’t go too hard grabbing everything because we didn’t think it would come to this,” homeowner Randi Marcucio told WTNH, an ABC station. “I got my son’s teddy bear, but we didn’t go too hard grabbing everything.”
Marcucio, who works as an emergency room nurse, had purchased the home on East Hill Road in Oxford two years ago.
However, according to a GoFundMe campaign set up to support the single mom, “the normally peaceful stream next to her house rose rapidly, completely destroying the foundation of their home and washing away all of their belongings.” It happened in an instant.
Reports from NBC affiliate WVIT and CBS affiliate WFSB stated that the flash flooding in Connecticut tragically led to the dea.ths of two women. Ethelyn Joiner, 65, and Audrey Rostkowski, 71, were swept away by the rising waters in the area on Sunday, August 18.
According to NBC News, powerful thunderstorms passed through the region, resulting in nearly a foot of rain in some parts of the Tri-State area.
Marcucio shared with WTNH that her three-year-old son Riley didn’t fully grasp the extent of what they had lost, and she herself is still struggling to come to terms with the fact that they lost what was meant to be “our forever home.”
“I don’t know how to tell him,” she said.
As of Wednesday, August 21, the family’s GoFundMe page has raised more than $150,000 in donations.