Four Years After Superstorm Sandy, Staten Island Woman Moves Into New Home In Old Neighborhood
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A Staten Island woman has waited four long years to say "there's no place like home," after Superstorm Sandy nearly destroyed her house.
Now just days before Christmas, her present is too big to fit under the tree.
"I'm really happy with it, and wow," 57-year-old Dorothy North told CBS2's Scott Rapoport.
For the first time since the hurricane devastated her home on Mapleton Avenue, she's in a brand new house back in the place she loved so much.
Four years ago, North was forced to evacuate her old house.
"I think I would have died if I stayed," she said.
She hired a contractor to help rebuild and she actually lived in the house for a few years, but said there were still problem and the house had to be torn down.
She didn't know if she would ever be able to move back.
"I had doubts," she said.
But through the work of New York City's "Build it Back" program, the house, which is in a flood plain, was elevated 14 feet. It was paid for with insurance money, FEMA and HUD funds.
While it was being rebuilt, she lived in an apartment and was reimbursed for the rent by the city.
North is now unpacking boxes and getting things ready for her two dogs, Snaggy and Casey, and her two cats, Black Kitty and Moggy, and the house is beginning to feel like home again.
"It's just so pretty," she said.
All that's missing is her husband Mike. She said he loved their old house. He died a year before Sandy struck.
"I think he'd feel good about it," she said.
