Two Years Later

The long road home after Sandy

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It has been two years since Susan Calandra and her family slept in their Willoughby Avenue home. The Seaford family has been displaced since Hurricane Sandy hit, and they are hoping to move into their newly restored house before the holidays.

At the South Shore marked the two-year anniversary of the storm, Susan, her husband, John, and sons Nicholas and John Carlo had yet to return, but construction is progressing on the house. They are renting a one-bedroom apartment in Wantagh, which has kept them close enough so Nicholas, a ninth-grader, and John Carlo, a seventh-grader, could remain in Seaford schools.

Rebuilding has been a long and sometimes frustrating ordeal. Navi-gating the labyrinth of insurance claims, appraisals and state and federal aid money hasn’t always been easy, Susan said, but the support of friends and family helped along the way.

Members of the Sloboda family, of Riverside Drive, have been back in their home for about a year, but there is still so much more work to do to get back to normal, Dianne Sloboda said. Much of her house lacks furniture, and the landscaping remains a work in progress.

“Everything was a challenge but we persevered by sticking together,” she said. “We had a lot of drive, a lot of support.”

Susan Calandra and her family stayed in their one-story house when Sandy hit on Oct. 29, 2012. As water started coming in from all sides, they began grabbing their possessions and putting them up high. The family sat on top of couches to keep themselves above water — and to keep the couches from floating away. As the water receded, they finally left, each with a backpack full of personal items.

“Don’t look back. Follow Daddy,” Calandra recalls telling her two sons, as they noticed that a nearby fallen tree had acted as a dam and kept even more water from coming. They made it to their cars, which they had parked up on Merrick Road, and went to a friend’s house in Massapequa. The family stayed together in one bedroom for about a month before finding an apartment.

Initially, the Slobodas — Dianne, her husband, her mother, her daughter, three stepchildren and two rescue dogs — all tried to live together on the second floor of their house, but that became impossible. Dianne’s brother, who lives in Virginia, took her mother in for eight months. The rest of the family bounced from Lake Ronkonkoma to Melville to Bethpage. Renting a house was a challenge, she said, because of both the high demand for rentals and trying to find a place that allowed dogs.

Bethpage was the closest they could get to Seaford, where her daughter, Danielle, attended school.

The first floor of their home, which had been rebuilt following an inundation of 2 feet of water during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, was heavily damaged again after Sandy, when the flooding rose to within 2 feet of the first-floor ceilings. Sloboda said she thought they had prepared adequately by piling sandbags around the home and moving items up high, but the storm proved to be much more severe than anyone expected.

Eventually the home was raised and the ground level was entirely reconstructed. “The house looks totally different than what it was,” Sloboda said, noting that the family considered fixing it up and staying just long enough for her daughter to graduate from high school. But with the house much higher now, she said, there is a greater feeling of security. They like where they live again, the higher house now has nicer views, and their fear of water is fading.

“We chose to take the tough road because we like the area and the neighbors so much,” Sloboda said. “There was so much about Seaford that we love.”

The living room remains empty and the walls are bare. Outside, the pool has not been replaced or the patio rebuilt. When the house was raised, the surrounding property was torn up pretty badly, Sloboda said.

Calandra’s new Willoughby Avenue home will be two stories, with all the bedrooms upstairs. The first floor is now 12 feet above sea level instead of 7, like the old house, which was torn down on Father’s Day 2013. All the framing is done, but a plumbing inspection must be completed, she said, before construction can resume. The new house also has flood vents in the foundation.

Initially, Calandra and her husband considered reconstructing and raising the old house, but there was mold as well as structural issues. A new home simply made sense, she said. The family received insurance money and funds from New York Rising. Amid all the challenges, she said, the family’s case worker from Federation Employment and Guidance Services has been like their guardian angel.

“I have faith,” Calandra said. “I have a great support system through my friends.”

Throughout the ordeal, she said, she has never looked for a handout, just for the recovery process to be made a little bit easier for people. The small setbacks add up, she said. The money from New York Rising — $161 per square foot — was insufficient. “It’s jut not enough,” she said. “We live in a state that is so expensive.”

The Slobodas also received money through insurance and New York Rising, but they still had to pay for a lot out of pocket. They have credit card debt and loans to repay to family members. But being back home, Dianne said, is what is most important. “We have a better house now,” she said. “A safer house.”

The Calandras are looking forward to moving into their new home within the next two months — in which, for the first time, Susan’s two sons will have their own bedrooms. Her youngest son, she said, was particularly affected by the storm, and a poem he wrote hangs next to the front door of their soon-to-be home.

“I’m going to get through this. I am,” Calandra said. “I’m doing this for my children. Out of the bad comes something good.”