Sunday evening, after the bulk of the rain and wind of Hurricane Irene passed through CT, Greg and I got in the car and decided we’d try to check on the family’s beach house down in East Haven. We heard Cosey Beach Ave. was hit pretty hard, and that there was a lot of damage out there, but we never expected to find what we did…

The road was closed and the National Guard was walking up and down the street, checking out the wreckage (a.k.a. the houses that lined the coast). As we made our way through the side streets in knee high water, we could only get as close as the opposite side of Carolina Creek, but didn’t dare wade across, for fear of getting yelled at by the big men in army pants and guns strapped to their thighs… so we hung back a bit, and I used my zoom lens to grab some pics. At first glance, it looked to be mostly cosmetic damage to the house we have come to love and cherish for the last few years.

You see, Cosey Beach is more then just a house to us. It’s a place of so many great memories that we Cucinelli’s have created over the years. It’s a place we get together and have way too much delicious food to eat just because it’s Saturday. It’s a place we get together to laugh, to share in life’s good times. It’s a place to enjoy each others company, to create beautiful sewing projects, to spend time with new family members (like my beautiful niece Julia… check her out here!) and old (I’m not sayin’ who’s “old” I’m just sayin’) …

But when Greg’s oldest Brother, Chris, snuck into the house Sunday evening, he captured a few pics (before getting kicked out by the Guard) that told the true story of what happened when Irene reared her ugly head upon Cosey Beach Ave. This morning, they all trekked down to asses the damage to the house. It’s pretty bad, but the good news is that the street was rightfully evacuated before the storm hit, no one was home when the worst of it blew through, and no one, not a single soul living on Cosey Beach Ave, was hurt. That’s some serious good blessing, right there!

These next three are interiors of the neighbors houses… which are, as you can see, in considerably worse shape then ours.

Again, at least no one was hurt. Everyone on Cosey Beach ave was evacuated Saturday, and though the cleanup and rebuilding will take a long time, we can at least feel good about the fact that a few nick nacks and furniture were the only things lost to this crazy storm…