BY JENN McDOWELL
Marcia Abbott and Brian Gagne will be happy to be back at home, even if it’s 10 feet in the air.
The house on Riverside Park Drive, a small brown cottage-like structure they have dubbed the gingerbread house, was twice ruined in the Suncook River’s spring floods of 2006 and 2007.
Flood insurance paid to raise the house up on a concrete foundation, something they couldn’t do after the first flood, Gagne said, because their flood insurance requires that it happen twice.
But insurance didn’t pay for decks and stairs to get into the house, nor did it replace the insulation, flooring, appliances, and other brand new items acquired after the first flood.
It didn’t replace the old things, either. A 200-year-old antique wood buffet, passed down through Abbott’s family, survived the first one but didn’t make it through flood waters the second time around.
Abbott and Gagne had been back in their home, newly furnished and completely repaired, for about six months before the second flood hit in April.
A crew of workers, organized by No Place Like Home, Grace Capital Church and the Merrimack County Community Action Program, gave them back some pieces of their home.
The workers, including electricians, plumbers and construction workers, volunteered their time on Saturday, Sept. 22, to construct decks in the front and back of the house, build staircases inside and outside, finish a large portion of the plumbing and wiring, and dig a trench for a new gas line among other repairs.
Andy Labrie of the Community Action Program walked through the devastated neighborhood after this year’s waters had receded as people attempted to clean up what was left behind – mostly silt and trash, and items such as propane tanks that had drifted into their yards.
Community Action provided the materials, and Pastor Mark Warren of Grace Capital Church got the work crew together after Paula Young of No Place Like Home contacted the church for pastoral care for the couple.
“It’s great to pray for them, but really what I thought they needed was to get some work done,” Warren said.
Gagne, Abbott and their three cats have been living in a mobile home on Abbot’s mother’s lawn in Derry since they had to leave their home.
Both are out of work, Gagne having been laid off at the end of March and Abbott having to quit her job to take on the full time work of cleaning up and rebuilding their home – again.
“We have to get in before winter,” Abbott said, before the cold and snow comes, adding that the clean up and restoration is a “full time job.”
Many local businesses were involved in the work done on their home, including Dumpster Depot, Bagley Construction, DME Construction, and Jim Donnelly from Donnelly Plumbing and Heating.
Ken Hadley, senior project manager for the construction company J.H. Spaine, Assoc., oversaw the project.
“We probably donated over $10,000 worth of labor,” Warren said.
Other homes on the road, which is located near the Suncook’s banks, are in worse shape than Gagne’s and Abbott’s, several of them now empty.
“Everyone on the road just didn’t recover financially, emotionally, or mentally from last year’s flood, and we get hit again,” Abbott said. “Some people have been here 20 or 30 years, and they’re thinking about leaving.”
The flooding, however, pulled together the neighbors. “Disaster sometimes brings the community together,” Gagne said.
Damages from the two floods have cost the couple about $150,000, only a portion of which insurance paid for, Gagne said.
Once their home is livable, they will be able to help others still working to get back in their houses before winter hits, they said.
The couple is grateful for the huge amount of work the volunteer crew completed. “They’ve helped me out quite a bit with what they could do,” Gagne said.
Gagne said they hope to get into their home in the next few weeks. As of now, the walls and ceilings have been painted, and they are working on putting in the floors and getting the electrical and heating work done.
“We just keep plugging away day by day,” he said.