A heart-stopping video captured the moment a home was ripped from its foundation and tossed into a river as a historic and deadly storm battered Connecticut. The beaten-down two-story house crumbled to pieces when the remaining shards of its foundation gave way Monday following hours of torrential downpours and flooding. Tables and chairs can be seen spilling out from the torn-apart structure moments before the roof slides down the embankment below it and onto the rocky bank of what was once a babbling brook that swelled into a monstrous flood during the weekend storm. Fortunately, homeowner Randi Marcucio and her 3-year-old son escaped the building before the chaos unfolded.
Marcucio, a single mom and ER nurse, had lived in the Oxford home for just two-and-a-half years. She bought the house on Mother’s Day in 2022 after finding the narrow Fivemile Brook that runs along the property an idyllic spot to raise a young boy. That same brook surged when the storm — which killed at least two people — rolled through Sunday afternoon as Marcucio was preparing to cook dinner.
The flooding became so intense that the street turned into a river that washed away chunks of the dirt hill where Marcucio’s home rested. The river started to take the massive, 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.
The house finally collapsed around 9 a.m. Monday, but Marcucio was not around to witness the tragedy — she spent the storm helping other neighbors on the flooded hill find shelter. After hours of ensuring that the neighborhood babies were safe, the ER nurse slept at her parent’s home. A neighbor heard cracking and ran to investigate. All that was left when Marcucio returned was remnants of her house.
To make matters worse, Marcucio said she cannot recuperate her losses — she didn’t have flood insurance, so none of the damage is covered. Despite the horror, the single mom is trying to remain positive, a difficult task largely made possible by the overwhelming love of her son. He’s incredible. He’s such a smart, happy kid, and he knows something’s wrong, but he’s happy to see mommy,” Marcucio said.
He doesn’t even really know what’s happening. He just knows that people keep showing up for him … He’s seen me at different homes, he’s seen me soaking wet. He’s seen me crying in the last day so he’s happy that mommy’s here, and now he gets to show mommy the things his ‘friends’ — strangers — have come to him with,” she continued, referring to donations neighbors have sent and the money raised in 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,” Marcucio 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?” she continued.
Marcucio’s home wasn’t the only building to sustain damage when flooding swept through western Connecticut Sunday into Monday — leading to the evacuation of more than 100 people by search-and-rescue teams. Two women were killed about five miles north of Marcucio’s property, one of whom was swept away when she was walking down the street.
