LLOYD NECK, N.Y. (WCBS 880) — The remnants of Hurricane Ida brought widespread damage to the Tri-State area Wednesday, but one elderly couple says they slept through the storm and awoke to find their home destroyed.
Ginger and Peter Murphy, both 82, told WCBS 880’s Sophia Hall that they went to sleep in their Lloyd Neck home just before the storm hit and woke up to find their home in shambles.
“I thought it was a dream when I woke up and saw this tree right in front of me,” said Ginger.
A tree fell through their home and into their bedroom during the storm, just inches from where they were sleeping.
“We were sound asleep, and we never woke up,” Ginger added.
The couple was woken up by their son, Mark, who came to the house and saw the destruction, and frantically began calling out to them.
“He screamed to us, three times he called out to us,” Ginger said.
Mark said he had no idea what had happened to his parents when he arrived and was desperate to get into the home. However, the front door would not open, as the ceiling had fallen in.
“They didn’t respond for a few seconds, so I was trying to plan alternatives to cut the wall open with the chainsaw,” said Mark. “But, they responded, we got the door open. I had to help them both out.”
Mark says the storm downed 30 to 40 trees behind his parents’ home.
Ginger said she believes a higher power was looking after them.
“It came so close to everywhere here, it’s just all around the house, everywhere,” she said. “I said, ‘Our work is still going on, on this Earth.”
Hall noted that dozens of trees and power lines were downed during the storm throughout Long Island, including in a private community called Fiddlers Green, where residents say they are completely responsible for the clean-up.
“I have never seen it like this,” one woman said. “This is terrible – tons of damage, tons of roofs caved in and cars [destroyed].”
She told WCBS 880 the damage is “worse than Sandy.”
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