OXFORD, Conn. — It’s been two days since a historic storm ripped through the southwestern part of Connecticut, hitting towns like Oxford the hardest.
Tuesday afternoon, the cleanup continued, as neighbors began to rally around those who lost everything.
“Everybody is helping anyone and everyone and that’s the best part of this, is seeing everyone rally,” said Randi Marcucio, whose entire home on East Hill Road collapsed into a nearby brook Monday morning.
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Marcucio said she was home for most of the day Sunday, until she noticed the water began to fill the first floor of the house. When she called on her neighbors to help her clear some of it out, the brook started to swell up even more as weather conditions worsened.
“As they showed up, a tree went down, the bridge over the creek went down, the deck went down, the oil tank floated away,” Marcucio said.
When she got out of the home, she grabbed her three-year-old son’s teddy bear, not knowing she wouldn’t have a chance to go back in. Luckily, nobody was inside when it collapsed on Monday.
“At no point did we ever think the whole house was going to go, at all,” Marcucio said.
Without flood insurance, the home is completely destroyed. It was a dream home for Marcucio, a single mom and nurse who bought it just over two years ago on Mother’s Day.
“There’s no words. It hurts my heart for my son. Because he loved it, you know,” Marcucio said.
Since the storm, friends, family members, and even strangers have stepped in to help.
“Our neighbors are great. They’re all helping each other, making sure we’re all good, some people are letting them stay at their houses and stuff,” said Kaitlyn Mullen, who lives on the street next to Marcucio.
Mullen said she ran over to Marcucio’s house once she heard how bad things were getting.
“I could hear the river, it was like the worst sound ever, you could hear the boulders moving, crashing together, and I heard her; I could hear her, screaming,” Mullen said.
Mullen said she offered help and is working on setting something up at her place of work at the Dew Drop Inn in Derby.
“I was going to set up a little something at work, and have people donate so we could, you know, help her out as well,” Mullen said.
That fundraiser would be on top of others that already exist for Marcucio and her family, including a GoFundMe page that’s been set up, raising more than $97,000 so far.
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Julia LeBlanc is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jleblanc@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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