A fallen tree crashed into the roof of Stephanie Conant’s mobile home in Brunswick. The tree, which fell Monday morning during the storm, cracked the ceiling and caused water damage to the interior. Conant cannot afford to repair it. Courtesy of Stephanie and Jennifer Conant
At around 10 a.m. on Monday, Stephanie Conant of Brunswick was rummaging around her home for batteries when she heard a loud “crack.”
“We had just lost power,” said Conant, who owns a mobile home in Bay Bridge Estates, where she lives with her three children. “I was scavenging the house, and then I sat down for a minute, and ‘bang!’ — the tree landed, literally just above my head. Thankfully, I jumped up and ran out of the house.”
“Luckily, my children were in school,” she said. “So they didn’t have to endure any of that.”
The family is displaced, staying with Conant’s sister, Jennifer, and her three children in Lisbon, a huge change for the kids just before the holidays.
No one was injured, but Conant described the damage as “extensive.” She doesn’t have insurance, as the quoted premiums to cover her aging mobile were exorbitant. She contacted the Federal Emergency Management Agency to ask about receiving financial support for the repairs and is waiting to hear back.
“One of the branches was literally stuck completely inside of the roof,” she said in an interview on Thursday. “The ceiling is completely cracked.”
The shed behind Stephanie Conant’s house was destroyed by the same tree. Courtesy of Stephanie and Jennifer Conant
A friend cut down the tree and removed it from the structure, but the branch remains wedged in the roof. Conant said she heard recently of a list residents could get on to request that trees near their homes be removed by Bay Bridge management but wishes she had known about it sooner.
Andrew Fells, chief operating officer of Legacy Communities, which owns Bay Bridge, said Thursday that “maintenance staff were on-site throughout the storm, and bottled water was delivered until water and electricity could be restored, which happened today.”
“Plans are underway to trim any damaged trees and a contract has been signed to remove all fallen branches and debris from the property,” he added.
Legacy Communities, which owns over 55 mobile home and RV parks, is based in Florida.
Conant is among thousands of Mainers whose homes sustained damage from water and wind in Monday’s storm. As of Thursday morning, over 130,000 people were still without power and 66 roads remained closed.
“It’s really difficult,” she said of the new living arrangement with her sister’s family. “You feel like you’re invading someone else’s space, and there isn’t a whole lot of space to begin with. And throwing another entire family in that space is definitely hard. We’re trying to make it work and we’re doing a good job at it, but it is definitely trying.”
The fallen tree broke through to the interior of Conant’s home, where water leaked into the kitchen. Photo courtesy of Stephanie and Jennifer Conant.
Jennifer’s apartment has three bedrooms — the children are split between two rooms, she said, while Stephanie is sleeping in the third and she and her boyfriend have been sharing the couch.
“We actually moved our tree around because we’ve got six kiddos in a smaller living room,” Jennifer said. “We were like, ‘How do we make this work?’ Because I think it’s gonna be a pretty crazy holiday.”
Jennifer, who started a GoFundMe campaign on Tuesday to help her sister pay for repairs, said the Brunswick school system has already reached out to say they would like to help the family over Christmas.
“People have been wonderful,” Stephanie said. As for the response from her neighbors, “It really made me feel loved. All of my neighbors just flew over and did whatever needed to be done. They were right there hands on, they jumped in. It’s amazing the support that just came out of nowhere, you know what I mean? Like, great people.”
“We got lucky,” she added. “If things were different, then the outcome may have been a little different, and I’m just thankful for everyone’s support, I’m very grateful.”
Donations can be made to Jennifer’s GoFundMe at tinyurl.com/yk8anufj.
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