A dramatic video has captured the moment a two-story home was torn from its foundation and hurled into a river.
The house, located in Oxford, Connecticut, crumbled after hours of relentless rain and flooding weakened its foundation on Monday.
A storm, that has been dubbed "historic" and "deadly" by the New York Post, unleashed devastation in the area.
Randi Marcucio, an ER nurse and single mother, had lived in the house for just over two years. She purchased the property on Mother’s Day in 2022, drawn to the idyllic setting along Fivemile Brook, a spot she thought would be perfect for raising her young son.
However, that peaceful brook transformed into a deadly flood on Sunday as a powerful storm moved through the region.
The storm, which claimed at least two lives, brought with it such intense flooding that the street outside Marcucio's home became a river, eroding the hillside on which the house stood.
Harrowing footage shows furniture spilling out of the collapsing structure, moments before the roof slides down the embankment into what had once been a tranquil brook, now a raging torrent.
Marcucio and her three-year-old son were fortunate to escape the property before the catastrophic collapse.
“You just fall to the ground. There goes everything,” Marcucio said in an emotional interview with The New York Post.
“The river started to take the massive, tall, tall, tall deck pillars,” Marcucio recalled. “The deck started to go. The deck went. The oil tank detached from the house.
"Over hours, slowly but surely, everything just started to go. The basement started to go. The basement went. A lot of the basement went. And then the second story was just kind of hanging.”
By 9:00AM Monday, the house had completely collapsed.
Marcucio wasn’t there to witness the destruction, as she had spent the storm helping neighbors find shelter on the flooded hill.
Exhausted from her efforts to ensure the safety of neighborhood children, she spent the night at her parents’ home.
When she returned, only fragments of her house remained. Adding to the devastation, Marcucio revealed that she does not have flood insurance, leaving her without coverage for the damage.
Speaking about her son, Marcucio shared: "He’s incredible. He’s such a smart, happy kid, and he knows something’s wrong, but he’s happy to see mommy.
"He doesn’t even really know what’s happening. He just knows that people keep showing up for him."
Marcucio has been moved by the generosity of her community, as neighbors have donated items and funds through an online fundraiser.
"Oh, my God. It’s incredible. You want to die in one breath and then the next breath you’re like, ‘This is everything. This is life,’" she said.
"I didn’t lose my life. My son didn’t lose his life. We lost our stuff. Two women lost their lives. How can I even begin to complain about anything?"
At the time of writing, the fundraiser page has gained $127,000 from a target of $175,000.
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