Rachael Ray says NYC apartment flooded in Hurricane Ida, 1 year after devastating house fire
Rachael Ray is experiencing even more homeowner headaches and heartache.
One year after losing everything in a devastating fire that destroyed her Lake Luzerne, N.Y., home, the TV cook says her NYC apartment completely flooded during the Hurricane Ida storms. Worse yet, she just renovated it.
"We had finally just finished the work on making the apartment over," Ray, 53, told People magazine. "Then Ida took it out — and I mean out. Down hard."
She said the fireplace, every speaker in the ceiling and every seam in the wall "just literally melted, like in Wicked or something."
Because so many homes were impacted in the region, Ray said she and husband John Cusimano waited a week before a remediation team could come and assess the water damage. When they did, things got worse. Massively worse.
The remediation team arrived, "put up their fans and their humidifiers. And then, they make a hole in the wall and break the main water pipe and flood the entire building down to the first floor — from our apartment on the sixth floor. The people that we were waiting for, the cavalry, burst this pipe and made everything worse."
After two disasters in one year, "Tell me you would not feel like a kicked can," she said.
However, she insisted they still "have so much to be grateful for" in a time when so many are suffering. "I mean, I'm alive. And I do have a roof over my head. And I do have a job."
Not to mention that when her upstate N.Y. house burned to the ground — due to creosote buildup in their chimney — she was able to move into the property's guest house. From there, she kept making her daytime show.
This is what’s left of our house, today. Sharing our story + what we’ve learned in a very unusual @rachaelrayshow premiere. Thank you to all our first responders, viewers + friends for their unending support. We are very grateful and mindful of how fortunate we are in many ways. pic.twitter.com/lv18pTIkpI
— rachael ray (@rachaelray) September 14, 2020
Plus, she recently revealed that she purchased a home in Tuscany — her lifetime dream. She was able to visit the property for the first time since COVID regulations allowed and after she and Cusimano were able to secure new passports, which burned in their house fire.
Ray is releasing a new memoir/cookbook This Must Be the Place, in November, featuring 125 recipes she cooked for her TV audience in her upstate N.Y. home during the pandemic (with her husband as cameraman). The book also shares "personal stories on loss, gratitude, and the special memories that make a house a home."
The TV star told People despite her troubles over the last year, "At the end of the day, we always come back to grateful."
