Newtown Couple Finds Storm Damage Was A Blessing In Disguise

By Nancy K. Crevier

It did not occur to Danielle Smith and Scott Kunz that there might be a silver lining behind the clouds Sunday, August 28, as they stood outside their home at 62 Scudder Road. A gigantic hickory tree lay across half of the roof, pushing out the walls and allowing the last of the rain from Tropical Storm Irene to pour down into the basement.

In anticipation of their August 2012 wedding, Ms Smith and Mr Kunz had purchased the house in December 2010, fully aware that the ranch was “a good deal” because it needed some TLC and eventual upgrades to its electrical and plumbing systems, and shoring up of some of the framing. Not one week earlier, Mr Kunz had finished painting the exterior, one of several thousand dollars worth of improvements they had made to date.

“Our original plan was that we would use any money we got from our wedding to do the upgrades and some of the other jobs the house needed, over time,” said Mr Kunz.

That changed when a loud “thud,” just after 6 am, August 28, woke the couple.

“I hadn’t been able to sleep all night, worrying about the hurricane and listening to the wind,” recalled Ms Smith. “I was texting a friend in New York who couldn’t sleep either, and ironically, she texted that her boyfriend’s parents’ house had gotten hit by a tree,” she said. Shortly after that, Mr Kunz begged her to go to sleep.

“He told me to stop worrying, that nothing was going to happen,” said Ms Smith. Not ten minutes later, they heard the loud noise.

“The house didn’t shake or anything. We couldn’t figure it out, so we got up,” said Mr Kunz.

Walking down the still dark hall toward the kitchen, he turned to Ms Smith and said, “It sounds like it’s raining in here.”

They flipped on the kitchen light and beheld what they call “a surreal scene. There was a big tree extending across the entire front of the house,” he said. It had pushed out the kitchen wall, and a further look showed that a limb had punched holes in the ceiling of the room that they used as an office. A large section of the soffit blocked the front door.

“The weirdest thing,” said Ms Smith, “was that we hadn’t lost power. All I could think was, ‘This can’t be happening.’ It didn’t seem real.”

The arrival of Dodgingtown Volunteer Fire Company in response to their 911 call was the beginning of four months of what could be called a “crash course” in insurance and home ownership for the young couple. The fire company cleared the door, told them to take what they needed — including the cat — and cut the power to the house. Still stunned, they headed to Bethel to stay with Mr Kunz’s parents.

“It was terrible,” said Ms Smith. “We didn’t know if more trees were falling on our house, if everything was ruined, what to do,” she said. The reality of the situation hit home when they returned to survey the damage later in the day, and to recover more items they needed before the building inspector slapped a “Condemned” sign on the door.

Initially, they did not understand the fascination others seemed to take in the accident, driving by and snapping photographs, again and again. Later, they would be told by the town, their contractor, and the insurance adjuster that theirs had been the worst hit house in town.

“Everyone was so great, though,” said Ms Smith. A friend who is a contractor came by immediately to assess the situation, and a local tree company removed the tree for no money up front, the next day. That allowed the house, now open to the elements, to be tarped before more damage could be done. CL&P set up a temporary power line to the house, so that the contractor could work.

In a world where tales of nightmarish dealings with insurance companies are rampant, Mr Kunz and Ms Smith were relieved to discover that their company was extremely accommodating. “They sent an adjuster out to do an estimate, but during the whole thing, whenever the actual cost was more, we let them know and they covered the additional costs,” said Mr Kunz.

The couple did have to wait several days for the adjuster to arrive, but the worst part of that was that they had been told not to empty their two refrigerators until he had done the estimate.

“I had just gone to Costco and stocked up on meats and produce, so by the time we were able to get rid of it, it was pretty disgusting,” Ms Smith said.

Incredibly, said Mr Kunz and Ms Smith, because of the manner in which the roof collapsed and took the wall down, none of the new appliances they had bought for the kitchen was damaged. The tree lay over the living room, but did not break through there, sparing all of the furniture, and where the ceiling was punctured by limbs in the office, no computers or other equipment was beneath the break. “We hardly lost anything, really,” said Ms Smith.

The basement was another story, where everything that was not in plastic containers was destroyed by the water that came in or, in subsequent days, by the mold and mildew that blossomed.

“You don’t realize how quickly mold accumulates, in such a short time,” declared Ms Smith. Once they realized that, they were concerned about how all of the furniture and other items stored in a pod in the driveway was faring. Much to their relief, when they opened the pod in November to check on it, there was no sign of mildew.

Hidden Hazards Uncovered

Mr Kunz said that it was a great relief to have someone with whom he was familiar in charge of the renovations. That made it easier to deal with the bad news that kept popping up as work progressed. Buried beneath layers of insulation and behind the walls, out of sight of the home inspector they had hired prior to buying the house, were problems that, had the storm damage not exposed them, could have resulted in fires from poor electrical wiring, and rigged heating and plumbing systems that would certainly have led to one costly repair after another down the line. Structural problems had to be corrected, and what boggled their minds most, the roof turned out to have not been fully attached to the house. “It was nailed in spots, but our contractor couldn’t believe that it wasn’t attached,” said Mr Kunz.

It seemed like they would be back in the house before the holidays, despite the setbacks to correct code problems, but then October 29 and Winter Storm Alfred arrived.

Mr Kunz and Ms Smith were being housed at Avalon apartments in Danbury while repairs were done. “We could hear trees around there snapping all night long,” said Mr Kunz, “and we dreaded what we would find here when the storm was over. We expected to come and find another tree on our house — but nothing!” The storm did throw the schedule off, however, with the contractor left to work off of a tiny generator, and the building inspector unable to do any inspections until power was returned to the home. “We had to extend our lease,” said Ms Smith, and accept the fact that it would be after the New Year before they could move back in.

The total cost of the repairs was huge. By the time the walls had been redone, the roof and ceilings replaced, the basement drywall stripped out and brought back down to just the frame, all new electrical and plumbing installed, new flooring laid in the kitchen and the hardwood floors refinished, and the exterior of the house repaired and repainted, the insurance company had issued them more than $90,000. The couple was also out of pocket another several thousand dollars for any expenses related to code violations not covered by insurance, and for upgrades they decided to do immediately, rather than dealing with more chaos later.

They primed and painted the last of the ceilings and walls, and moved back into the house the first week of January 2012.

Sitting at the dining room table, surrounded by their own things, they find it hard to believe what they went through, they said. But they are finally able to see the silver lining. “If the tree hadn’t gone through our house, we might not have found out until much later all of the really dangerous problems we had, beneath the surface,” Mr Kunz said.

“We were lucky to have adequate insurance. Don’t skimp on insurance is what I tell everyone now,” Ms Smith urged.

With one of the most severely crippled homes in Newtown by last summer’s tropical storm and one of the last to recover from it, the couple is happy to be able now to focus on the next life-changing event — their wedding, still on schedule for August.

“I think,” said Mr Kunz, “that we know what we’ll do with any wedding money we get. We’re getting rid of the other trees in the yard.”