Volunteers Work To Repair Sandy-Damaged Home During Marathon Rebuild Project
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – On the eve on the second anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, dozens of volunteers picked up hammers and saws to help a desperate Queens family reclaim their storm-damaged home.
TV 10/55's Long Island Bureau Chief Richard Rose was there as neighbors helped neighbors in the Rockaways.
Doreen Stack marveled at the nonstop work inside her gutted Broad Channel home where dozens of volunteers from Long Island and across the country were hammering, stapling and sawing Tuesday.
It was a marathon session aimed at giving the Stack family back their home of 10 years-- a home that Superstorm Sandy's floodwaters nearly washed away two years ago.
MORE: Superstorm Sandy: Two Years Later | Photo Galleries
The night of the storm, the Stack family huddled upstairs as an 11-foot storm surge sent several boats and even a shipping container crashing into their home, Rose reported.
"We were there the whole night, it was very scary, very dark. The water was coming in from every angle. The door broke off, the windows, the whole back of the house collapsed," Doreen said.
Like many storm victims, Doreen came up short on insurance and federal aid. For the last two years, she and her two grown children shivered without heat in their battered home, making what repairs they could until they were chosen by two national charitable agencies for the 24-hours, free makeover.
"Their shifts are eight hours each. We will work their fingers to the bone, not literally. They'll still have their fingers when they're done, but we're going to get a lot of great work done," Reese May said, a volunteer with the Bernard Project.
"At the end of this day, I will go home filthy and tired and I know I will have helped someone. That's a whole lot better than painting the walls at my house," one volunteer said.
The volunteers were not just from the tri-state area. Jenae O'Neil came in from Chicago to do work she's never done before.
"It's not just painting. We're putting up insulation and we're putting up sheetrock," she said.
Doreen was overwhelmed by the generosity of the complete strangers she now considers family.
"It's a miracle. God bless them," she said.
After the volunteers leave Wednesday, Doreen says she will begin refurnishing the inside in time for what she says will be one unforgettable Christmas.
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