Amanda Killian has lost everything and nothing in her life is as it was before the flood.
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It upended furniture, lifted the refrigerator off the flood and left a water mark at nearly eye level in her Rego Park apartment.
When the water started coming in, Killian called her husband John who was nearby and he made a suggestion.
"Go into the linen closet and grab a couple towels and put them under the door," John said.
There was nothing in the linen closet that could stop what was coming. Within a minute or two, a crushing wave of water five-feet-high came through the patio door.
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"It broke the door and it hit me and I fell over straight under the water, and the couch flipped over on top of me," Amanda said. "It was definitely higher than me and I'm about 5'2", so it definitely was about 5 feet, a a little bit more than that."
Somehow she got to her feet and managed to rescue her mother and a cat. By then, John was in the hallway and helped get his mother-in-law out.
But inside, Amanda started getting electric shocks. She said that's when she started not feeling good and she thought she might get electrocuted.
The basement apartments have seen flooding before, but nothing quite like what happened last week. Now some residents are left wondering if there should even be basement-level apartments.
Johns works for the TSA at JFK Airport. A couple months ago, he found a woman's diamond that had fallen from her engagement ring and reunited it with the owner.
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Last week, he lost a lot of himself. And recovering from it won't be so easy.
ALSO READ | Out-of-towner saved by New Jersey farmer with tractor during Ida flooding
Out-of-towner saved by NJ farmer with tractor during Ida flooding
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