Terre Haute native's Tennessee neighborhood took direct hit from tornadoes
His own home sustained damages, but others nearby were destroyed. "We are hanging in there. It's been a rough couple of days," he wrote in an email Wednesday night.
DaCosta, who spent much of his childhood in
His parents live in
Describing the destruction to his home, he said it has a hole in the side of the house that goes into the attic, the result of debris being thrown at the house. Window frames are bent and pulled outward from the wind pressure, and there is extensive damage to the roof.
Inside, the house has two-inch gaps between the walls and the ceiling "from where it looks like the roof was getting pulled off," he said. "All of our fencing was also picked up and thrown into the houses behind us. We're counting our blessings, though. Our neighbor's house is missing walls and you can see straight into their house. Just five houses down, there are homes that were leveled to rubble. The houses are just gone."
He also described what happened when the tornado struck.
"We were woken up at about
"We woke my oldest son up and called our neighbors across the street where my youngest son was having a sleepover. Around
When the family came out and looked out the window, it was still dark but the family could see some of the destruction. "We could see that our fence was gone and we had debris all over the yard and porch."
DaCosta immediately ran across the street and got his youngest son, who was OK.
He heard some of his neighbors calling out, and he shown his flashlight their way to see a whole front exterior wall of their house had collapsed in and his neighbor just peeking his head out from behind it.
The neighbors also had the whole side of their house ripped off and "you could see right into their living room. They were able to get out through the back door of their house and we took them and their three kids and dog over to our house, which was still remarkably intact," DaCosta said.
A few minutes later, the family received a panicked phone call from some friends that live on the street behind them.
"Their house was hit hard. The entire upstairs to their house was exposed and the back half of the house was missing the roof," he wrote. He jumped in the car and picked them up as well as their two kids and dog and took them back to his house as well.
"So we had 13 people, two dogs and a cat in our house by
"No one really slept. We all knew it was going to be bad but none of us were prepared to see what we saw when the sun did finally come up. Pure destruction. Our neighborhood looked like a war zone. Houses completely demolished," DaCosta said.
His insurance company "has been amazing. They have put us up in a hotel as they don't think it's safe to stay in our house until the roof and foundation are assessed. Electricity is still out. My son's middle school was destroyed and they are currently trying to figure out where the kids will go to finish out the school year. We've spent the past two days picking up the pieces. We've found items from our home and backyard hundreds of feet away," he stated.
The family is "kind of overwhelmed by the clean up process. There's still so much to do and it's hard to imagine it ever looking or being the same," he said.
But the worst of times bring out the best in people, he's found.
Wednesday morning, when they got back to their neighborhood, "We found what looked like the entire community helping out in any way they could and it was really something special. [Tuesday], since we were fortunate enough to still have our home intact, we spent the entire day helping and hosting our neighbors who literally didn't have a home with walls to come back to."
When he went back to further assess his home and attempt to tarp the roof and the hole in the side of the house, "I was immediately approached by two strangers with contracting experience to help. This sort of disaster is never something you want to see happen to your community, but it's in times like these where the best in people really comes out."
Asked how people can help those in
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