After Tree Crashes Through Roof, Gaithersburg Family Thanks Community for Unwavering Support, Grateful Everyone’s

DEBARYLIFE – Following the destruction of their home by one of the historic tornadoes that tore through Montgomery County on Wednesday night, a young couple from Gaithersburg, Maryland, is juggling the trauma and the cost of recovery.

With tears in her eyes, Veronica Contreras Fuentes thanked her family, friends, and neighbors for their unwavering love and support.

In order to replace commodities like food and kitchenware that were destroyed when a tree broke and crashed through the roof of her family’s Tulip Drive house, they organized a fundraiser to assist cover a large home insurance deductible.

Raising their 5-year-old son and infant daughter, they had only been the owners of the house for two years.

Contreras Fuentes and her spouse expressed their shock upon watching TV news and realizing a potential tornado was aimed straight toward their little, unfinished home while workers from a nearby landscaping business chopped down the tree in their backyard.

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“My husband came in screaming and he pulled me out of her room to go in my son’s room that’s right here in the front,” Contreras Fuentes recalled. “The next thing I knew, the house started shaking, the ground was shaking.” And as soon as we left her room, the entire house erupted in what I can only describe as a roar. There were also just electrical sparks everywhere.

With 3-month-old Eliana in her arms, Contreras Fuentes reported doing something incredibly instinctive: she bowed her back over her daughter, positioning her body to protect her in the event that the walls and roof fell.

“We’re alive, and for that, I’m grateful,” Contreras Fuentes remarked. “You know, material things are always replaceable and repairable, but our lives are not.”

She expressed her sincere gratitude to the neighbor for taking them in after they fled the house. The neighbor took the baby and encouraged Contreras Fuentes to “just breathe” as she watched her struggle with shock.