WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Candy Lee is left picking up the pieces.
“It’s...it’s bad,” Lee said.
Just days ago, she, her husband, Jack, and their two dogs, Toby and Buddy, narrowly escaped a catastrophe in the middle of the night at their home in Hilliards.
“He said he heard a train coming,” Lee said, talking about her husband. “I said, ‘What?’ All of a sudden after that, boom, and the whole house shook. We finally got the back door open and looked out and he said, ‘Oh man, we’re in trouble.’”
Heavy rain and fierce winds from Friday’s storms snapped a massive, decades-old tree. The tree came toppling down on their roof, splitting the home right through the bathroom. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
“We were lucky,” Lee said. “We and our two little fur babies were safe. We were in that back room.”
That giant tree sat near the home before the couple moved in more than five decades ago in 1968. A crew cut it up and hauled away it Wednesday, nearly five days after it fell, but the major damage it left was clear.
Inside the home, cupboards were ripped open, dishes had been smashed and there was shattered glass everywhere.
“That’s what’s left of my kitchen,” Lee said standing in the destroyed room. “I had a big tree trunk right down through that hole.”
Lee told Channel 11 she’s having trouble getting the insurance company to come out and survey the damage. Making matters worse, she said their vacation place in Florida was just battered and flooded by Idalia.
“But with his health, it’s a little stressful,” she said. “I just need to know, what do we do? Please somebody tell me. What do we do?”
The devastation left behind by the crashing tree forced the couple out of their home and into a 25-foot camper on the property.
“This is our home away from home,” Lee said. “It’s a little cramped because we’ve been hauling stuff in and out, but it’s a place to stay.”
The couple is weary and worried about how they’re going to afford the repairs, but they’re determined to rebuild and are staying strong with help from the community.
“If it hadn’t been for friends and neighbors, I don’t know where we’d be,” Lee said.
The couple said they are lifting each other up as they begin to move forward.
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