By EMELY MIRANDA-AGUILAR
Courtesy of Asheley Thomas
Asheley Thomas, then 21, was home alone with her pets when a fierce thunderstorm blew multiple trees onto her family’s small Berwyn house nearly three years ago, crushing about half of the living space. Her parents were not home at the time, and when they tried to return, they couldn’t reach their street because it was blocked. Her father had to drive over a sidewalk to get to his daughter.
Neighbors, including the one next door, Maryland Sen. Jim Rosapepe (District 21), came out to help Thomas and the pets exit the house. One of the trees that toppled onto the Thomas home fell from Rosapepe’s back yard.
“There were trees down all over the place,” Rosapepe said. “The home behind us, all sorts of other trees down. It was a classic example of an extreme weather event, that is in my judgment, because of climate change. We didn’t have these kinds of extreme weather events in Berwyn decades ago.”
Nearly three years later, the Thomas family is living under a roof that is patched with a tarp.
Thomas said the home was insured through the family’s mortgage company, Emigrant Mortgage, which assessed the damage to be greater than the balance of the mortgage loan. Thomas said Emigrant forgave the home’s mortgage rather than pay for repairs.
So now it’s our problem,” said Thomas, who called the house a “ticking time bomb.”
Typically, when a tree falls on a home, the insurance company that covers the damaged property pays the claim. The owner of the property where the tree fell from cannot make a claim to pay for someone’s else’s damaged home.
Thomas, whose parents are retired, said the family cannot afford to pay for repairs.
She said the family lives off of her father’s Social Security income and what she earns doing odd jobs. Her father, a former contractor, has cancer and is unable to make the repairs himself, she said.
Rosapepe and other neighbors helped the family seek grants from the state and city. College Park Mayor Fazlul Kabir said the city donated $5,000 toward bills and directed the Thomases to apply for other city grants, but the family did not pursue them.
Then, late last year, a Lothian contractor who knows some of the Thomases’ neighbors, agreed to take over the project at no charge. Chris Marshall, who owns The North Star Companies, told College Park Here & Now the work, which was scheduled to begin in late April, should be completed within about a month.
Marshall said he received donations from a “wealthy friend” and from 84 Lumber, and that his company will pay for some of the repairs. Neighbors have set up a GoFundMe pageGoFundMe page to help Marshall offset the costs, the contractor said.
Marshall recalled meeting Terry Thomas, Asheley’s mother, and said she was nearly in tears.
“I just said, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it,” Marshall said. “You gotta help people when you can.”
Marshall said he plans to repair the portion of the roof where one of the trees fell, as well as the section over the front door near the living room and the roof truss over the garage. He also plans to install a heating system in the home’s crawl space. The project could cost more than $50,000, Marshall estimated.
“[I feel] very relieved,” Asheley Thomas said. “It’s been three years, and we’ve had so much hope, and it’s just been [extinguished] so many times, and so we just don’t get our hope up anymore. … [Marshall has] definitely restored our hope and faith in humanity.”
