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Greenburgh Woman Mourns Father in her Flooded Home

GREENBURGH, N.Y. — A Greenburgh resident had her house flooded for the second time in two weeks on the same day she buried her father.

Rosemary Reich, 45, attended her father’s funeral Tuesday morning at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Less than 12 hours later, the rain that soaked Greenburgh caused the creek next to her house on Old Kensico Road to overflow, flooding her basement.

Reich said her basement was also underwater after Tropical Storm Irene and she spent the last week cleaning the mess it caused. Dealing with floods and her father’s death has been too much for her, she said.

“It’s been horrible,” she said. “It’s been so horrible.”

On the Sunday Irene hit, Reich said her father, Norman Ziskind, 80, who lived with her and her husband Scott, woke up at 5 a.m. while water was rushing into the basement. With tears in her eyes she recalled how he looked down the stairs and became scared about the rising water.

“One more step and the water would be in the house,” she said.

After Reich called 911 and was told by the police to evacuate the house, Ziskind started feeling sick and asked to go to the hospital.

“My father got nervous because he had heart problems,” Reich said.

He was taken to the White Plains Hospital, where he died four days later from an arrhythmia.

“Now he is gone," she said. "My father is completely gone.”

Reich said she never could have imagined such an outcome when she and her husband bought the house in May of 2010 after getting married. Both used to live in a one-bedroom apartment, she in Queens and he in White Plains, and were delighted with the house’s spacious bedroom and “beautiful fireplace.”

“I fell in love with this house the first time I saw it,” she said.

But everything changed after the house flooded four times in 15 months. Calling the creek “demonic” and blaming the flood for her father’s death, she said all she wants is to sell it.

 “I want to get out of here,” she said.

 

Have you or somebody you know also had your house flooded at Old Kensico Road? You can answer in Facebook.

 

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