Two weeks after move, family's home, possessions a total loss in Brunswick County tornado

Ocean Isle Beach, N.C. — Robert and Debra DeNitto, along with their 23-year-old son, Zachary, moved in to their new home Feb. 3. It was a $350,000 retirement dream come true: three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, 1,874-square-feet backing up to the golf course.

Less than two weeks later, a tornado ripped through their neighborhood at night, destroying their home and burying them under debris.

“It was a very scary, scary time,” Debra DeNitto said by phone on Friday, “I just thought I was gonna die there.”

She was trapped. She said crews needed jacks to free her. Her husband was able to free himself and help render aid to neighbors. Zachary did the same after checking on his mom.

While the destruction was all around her, Debra DeNitos says it was her house, along with a neighbor’s, that was the focus of the news helicopters.

“It was that the cul-de-sac that everybody’s showing on the news, and the national news, that’s where our house was,” she said with emphasis on the “was.”

“Ours was to the right with all the rubble on it.”

There was no tornado watch issued for the evening, but a terrible thunderstorm was loud and vicious.

“And then it became very quiet, which was very eerie. And then you hear that dreaded sound of a train, and you’re thinking, no, this, this is impossible,” she recalled.

The DeNitto family quickly started to gather, but “within seconds, we were all just blown into different directions and found ourselves under the rubble of the homes, just calling out for each other,” she said.

Zachary has a gash on his head. He and Debra went to the hospital.

Everything the DeNittos had, everything they owned, was destroyed.

“We have each other,” Debra DeNitto said. “There’s three of us still walking and breathing, so that’s the most important thing.”

The DeNitto family is currently staying in a hotel while their insurance handles the loss.