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Lisa Moskal moved to her Weston house last year and was excited to nest with her husband and two children. She wasn't expecting the record snowfall to turn her cozy home into a leaking mess.
"We've lost cable for four or five days, and now we're afraid about losing power," Moskal said as she left Weston Hardware and Houseware with a 50-foot hose and an axe.
The cable company visited her house but could not access the power box because it was hidden by a six-foot-high immovable block of ice. She also has no phone service or Internet.
"We've been hacking at [the ice block] for two or three days now with shovels," she said. "In desperation we're gonna try dousing it with hot water and hacking it with an axe."
Though Moskal welcomes the recent sunshine and warm weather, it has created another problem the melting ice is leaking into her home.
"We have damage in three different parts of our roof," she said. The floor in her living room was beginning to warp as the snow melted and leaked into her home. A square portion of drywall was missing from the ceiling because of water leaking from ice dams.
The house is only 2 years old, and they are not the original owner. She's hoping her insurance will cover the damage. One thing is not covered the broken mailbox at the end of her driveway.
"If the town had to pay for every mailbox that they knocked down they'd go broke," she said. "It's just what happens when you have a mailbox on the end like ours is."
Although this year's storms did not constitute a disaster, they have taken their toll. Connecticut has issued 14 weather disasters since 1953, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Only four states have issued fewer disasters. On Feb. 1, FEMA deployed liaison officers to state emergency operations centers in Connecticut to handle a number of town requests for storm cost reimbursements.
The Moskal family, however, will have to fend for themselves like the rest of us.
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