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Family Returns Home to Breezy Point 3 Years After Sandy

By Katie Honan | September 9, 2015 7:35am
 Jack and Kathy WIllis in front of their home on Bedford Avenue in Breezy Point. They moved in two weeks ago after their home was rebuilt using Build It Back funds.
Jack and Kathy WIllis in front of their home on Bedford Avenue in Breezy Point. They moved in two weeks ago after their home was rebuilt using Build It Back funds.
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DNAinfo/Katie Honan

BREEZY POINT — It wasn't as easy as Dorothy clicking her ruby-red slippers, but the Willis family knows there's no place like home.

Their house on Bedford Avenue in Breezy Point flooded during Hurricane Sandy and was later demolished after the city found it to be unstable.

Since 2012 they've bounced around apartments in Queens, finally finding one close to their son's high school.

When they spoke to DNAinfo on the storm's one-year anniversary in 2013, they were frustrated by a barrage of paperwork and by having to pay mortgage and fees to the Breezy Point Co-Op on an empty lot. They wondered if they'd ever get home.

"The hardest part of this whole thing is having to tell my son, 'I do not know' when he asks when we're going home," Kathy Willis said at the time.

In August, though, they moved back into a brand-new house, built through the city's federally funded Build It Back program.

It took around six months for the house, which is elevated to meet the FEMA flood standards, to be finished, they said. 

The Willis family's new home on Bedford Avenue in Breezy Point. (DNAinfo/Katie Honan)

They made it home just in time for the 57th Annual Mardi Gras parade, a Breezy Point celebration held the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.

The parade goes right by their house and for 18 years Jack Willis barbecued hot dogs for the pipe and drum bands that would stop for shade under a big tree in his front yard, he said.

Working on a new grill next to his new house, he scrambled to put more hot dogs on Saturday when he began to hear bagpipes. The shady tree was gone, but the marchers still stopped. 

A band member stops in front of the Willis family's house. (DNAinfo/Katie Honan)

"I'm out of practice," he said, and later added that it felt good to celebrate Mardi Gras in front of his own house again. 

Residents march in themed floats inspired by current events, pop culture and local happenings in the community. 

The parade marches up Bedford Avenue in Breezy Point. (DNAinfo/Katie Honan)

Homeowners decorate their houses, and entire blocks and walks sometimes create one theme on multiple homes.

The Willis' son Zack was home from college for the big weekend, which began as a celebration of the end of summer when Breezy Point was primarily a seasonal community.

Marchers walking by the Willis house welcomed them home and were greeted by a sign painted on a sheet by their daughter's friend, Casey Brouder.

"There's No Place Like Home," the sign read, above a pair of ruby slippers.

Later, after passing out the hot dogs and drinks, a friend dressed up in one of the many Donald Trump costumes that filled the parade asked Kathy how she was doing.

"I'm back in Breezy," she said. "That's all that matters."